This election is different from all others in another respect: These two presumptive nominees have no particular regional identity. John McCain was born in the Canal Zone, no longer a U.S. territory; grew up on military bases; moved to his wife's home state of Arizona and, running for Congress, noted accurately that he had lived in Hanoi longer than anywhere else.
Barack Obama grew up in Hawaii and lived for a time in Indonesia, went to school in Morningside Heights and Cambridge, and made his career in a city where he had never lived before, Chicago. He has been universally accepted by the Chicago political and fundraising establishment and won wide margins in Illinois. But neither he nor McCain has spent much of his life in ordinary Middle America.
It’s not like these presidential candidates spent large amounts of time outside their home culture, but it’s still interesting that they are both technically Third Culture Kids: children who are born or live in a third culture that is a combination of their home culture and a host culture for at least part of their lives.
No comments:
Post a Comment