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Finding home as a third culture kid
August 28, 2020
Meet Paola Barrera.
Paola was born in Spanish, lives in French, and thinks in English. She loves words and uses them as arrows to point to the best words she knows–those left by our Maker and found in Scripture. She’s a writer, speaker, and mentor. Canadian through the gift of immigration, she loves cold, snowy winters, and lives with her husband Gustavo in the beautiful, bilingual city of Montreal.
Paola is a friend of mine and a fellow transplanted Montrealer.
Paola started life in Venezuela where her grandparents were her primary and day-to-day caregivers until she moved to Switzerland during her teen years to attend boarding school.
From Switzerland she moved to Atlanta, GA in the United States, where she finished high school and went to college. In her mid-20's she returned to her birth country and for the next decade she re-adjusted to living in Venezuela, met her husband, and completed a graduate degree.
As the situation in Venezuela became increasingly critical, Paola and her husband Gus looked for a North American immigration option. By a margin of just a few months, they met the age limit for immigrating to Quebec.
In this interview, Paola brings her experience of being a third culture kid and immigrant to the Finding Home series.
According to Merriam-Webster third culture kids are "individuals who are raised in a culture other than their parents' or the culture of their country of nationality, and also live in a different environment during a significant part of their child development years."
As with everyone, Paola's ideas of home - what feels like home and what defines home - is heavily influenced by her growing years. Which for her happened in three languages and three cultures.
Montreal's old world architecture, North American urban context, and cacophony of cultures and accents - feels like home for a grown up third culture kid like Paola.
Equally important to Paola's sense of home is her understanding and experience of God's presence wherever she is. Another element of home she shares in our interview.
Home is a universal concept but what defines home for individuals is unique and always evolving. We find home in particular geography, relationships, history, culture, language, and beliefs. And it changes as we grow. As illustrated by Paola's story, and every other interview in this Finding Home series.
You can find Paola at her website here and on Instagram where she shared the story of her immigration in a 30 day writing challenge. You can read those immigration posts starting here.
Join my Patreon at the $5/month tier and have access to this and all previous interviews.
Wrapping up Patreon Podcast
This is my last Patreon podcast episode. The interviews will exist for the foreseeable future on Patreon. To listen to any individual or all episodes you need to join Patreon at the $5/month level. You can cancel your support at any time.
Here is a complete list of episodes, with a link to the Patreon page where you can listen to or download the episode.
- Re-scripting Life Beyond an Empty Nest
- Spiritual Direction, Art as Spiritual Practice & Female Friendship
- My American cousin: Immigration, cross-border love stories & communal living
- Talking about the Appalachian Trail with Homeschool Unrefined Podcast
- Migration, Cultural Displacement & Growing through Loss
- Enthusiastic Living, Free Learning & Self-Knowledge
- Lighting Design, Homeschooling Freedom, and Project-Based Learning
- A love for language and learning
- Worldschooling (and family travel), developing a growth mindset, and discovering your inner artist
- Warrior Parent & Parenting with the Enneagram
- Spiritual journeys and surviving crisis with compassion and community
- Interest-led learning with Amanda Tate
- Mid-life transitions (becoming a yarn shop owner) and outdoor living in Vermont
- Second Bloom Conversation with Bethany Lee
- The hidden work of nurturer, caregiver, mother, healer, and homemaker
- Losing faith to find Love
- A life of Christian and creative ministry
- Finding Home: A cash-built, off-grid home in rural Maine
- Finding Home: A milk crate, a homestead, and musical theater
- Finding Home: A place for creativity, community and connection
- Finding Home: A lifetime of building Sanctuary
- Finding Home: Urban, multi-generational, and multi-national experiences of home
- Finding home: Ancestral heritage, apartment living, and public spaces
- Finding Home: A grown-up, third culture kid immigrates to Montreal
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Finding home in heritage, apartment living, and public spaces
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An interview about finding home in our ancestral lands and heritage, apartment and small-space living hacks for families, and the value of publicly-owned property in extending our personal space and opportunities.
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As pandemic spring bleeds into pandemic summer I'm digging deep into my spiritual and emotional reserves, into the knowing I've developed through years of living - that we're going to get through this. It's going to be messy, we're going feel crappy about a lot of things, but we will get through.
Urban, multi-generational, and multi-national experiences of home
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Daniel's interview reminds us that home is not just a sense of family and community, the structure you live in, or the locale where you live. Home is a feeling of safety in our body. And that our goal as humans is to create the conditions where this can be true for everyone.
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Since moving to Montreal spring has been a season of running the gauntlet of theatre productions and driving. I exited every spring emotionally and physically exhausted and depleted. Not this spring.
Building Sanctuary throughout a lifetime
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Sanctuary is the name of my parent's home on the LaHave River. Sanctuary describes both the soul of the place and the meaning of home. Home, not as a structure or a particular location, but as a place where relationships are built and sustained, where family can always find refuge.
