No, I do not feel guilty about anything. If other people cannot accept who I am then it's their problem not mine. Why should I feel guilty? Why should how I feel about myself be determined by how other people perceive me?

How other people reacts towards me just proved my point that the world still has a lot to learn and we can't force it to change overnight.

As for Obama, we are not failures. We cannot gauge his success against ours. Because each TCK is an individual and is unique in his or her own ways.

I agree with Rafael, Obama succeeded in being a Politician. But as a TCK I don't think we'll ever know. I sometimes wonder what he thinks behind camera. And yet his cabinet is filled with TCKs so he probably doesn't feel as lonely. He still have someone he can relate to.

Obama is accepted and liked by other people AS AN AMERICAN. Does that bother him? I do not know - I don't think we ever will. But did he learn to embrace that? I betcha he did, otherwise he wouldn't be putting in so much effort to become the 44th Presidents of the United States. I betcha Obama sees the US more than just the place he was born. But you have to remember he did spend the rest of his life in the US after returning from Indonesia so there just may be something he felt comfortable in it that some of us may not or never figure out in our own home countries.

Again you can't compare yourself to Obama - everyone's success is measured differently. What works for Obama does not mean it will work for all of us.

Another qs to whoever who reads this:

Do u encounter too many times in life that ppl from ur home country make u feel guilty (we don't care if they did it on consciously or not, really, we DON'T CARE. They just do...) ... make u feel guilty that u feel more at home to some place else BUT "THEIR" home...

If so, how do u cope? I mean more of ur inner thoughts, to urself.

Do u feel guilty (even though u may hide it from ppl)...

DEEP DOWN, do u feel "guilty" that u consider a foreign country more as a home than ur passport country?

For example, in my case, I am discriminated by my skin color abroad...
Ppl abroad may be very rude toward my country.
Even though I don't trully fit in to my passport country, I still feel SUCH ANGER inside... when foreign ppl disrespect my passport country, my skin color, etc.

Do u guys too????
~~~~>"<~~~~~???

To Rafael:

You COMPLETELY misunderstood on what I meant by "success"

I meant "successfully reconciling with ur home country", and nothing career-wise! Not at all!!!!~~

Just being liked and accepted by the ppl.
And settling down there.

I'd be careful, that you don't misinterpret Obama's success.
I don't know much about him, so I just quickly skimmed the Wikipedia article on him, and it seems to me, that like almost everybody in the world, he had started off quite modestly.

I wouldn't see his success as that of a TCK, but that of a Politician - of course, being a TCK has influenced the way he thinks, and thus contributed to his success as a Politician. He had studied Politics and Law, which should qualify him quite well to work in any politics related area. From then on, sure, everything depended on how successfull he was at what he did. He was very good at his job - that is what brought him forward.
I don't think that at that time, people saw a TCK in him, but rather the lawyer/politician at work.

This is how I understand success for myself - be good at something, be it as an engineer, priest, lawyer, artist, etc... and gain respect for exactly that; and my TCK experience should actually help me achieve success, rather than hinder me in it. For that matter, I don't much care where I do this - be it in my home country or elsewhere.
Of course at "home" you have the legal advantages of carrying that country's passport(Uncle Dan also mentioned this, i.e. Work Permit), so it would only seem logical, to begin your path in that country, where you have the least obstacles. For me that would be my passport country Germany, since there is a ready infrastructure here that helps me financially to get a solid education. For an artist, that may be an environment in which they feel the most stimulated, and this may well be in another country rather than their passport. If you study literature, then I'd recommend to study in the language you feel most fluent in. Etc...

It doesn't matter if you're a TCK or not, you still have to learn and practice some sort of craft, be it research, business, law, singing, etc... and I think social success is mostly defined by how you prove yourself with your craft. For example, everybody respects a serious lawyer, efficient engineer, inspiring actor, talented musician, etc... being a TCK plays only a background role in this sense. I think that if you're descriminated for some TCK habits that you have, then this ceases once you gain acknowledgement as the practitioneer of some line of work. Being good at work gives you the right to be different.
Thus in conclusion, I think every TCK has to decide for themselves whether they fit in their Home Country or not; and there is no right or wrong here.


Now private success - Obama seems to have a happy family with children, that stays together no matter what they go through. That's something else, and I think being a TCK is more crucial here, but I don't have any idea how to evaluate this type of success.

Oh, I forgot to answer the latter part of your post.

For a long time, I resolved myself to have as little to do with my passport country (the US) as possible. I figured that I had had such a bad return attempt that, since I was living outside (in Switzerland) anyway and it felt so *good*, that there's no need to go back.

Then I ran into that wall in career-planning that is the lack of work permits, and decided that it would be worth trying to reconcile myself with the US.

And now that I've been back here for some 4-5 months, I can say that the US and I have been somewhat reconciled. I'm older than I was, more mature and more conscious of what is important. But I still think that I'd be better off outside, somewhere else. In other words, I don't hate it anymore, but objectively I'd still prefer somewhere else.

I think TCKs get hung up on the idea that they can either adjust properly or not. In other words, succeed or fail. They tend to forget that they have the option to leave. If you work hard enough at it, there are many ways to do so. The normal corporate climb, English teaching, the choice to study university (Bachelor's or Master's) entirely in another country... These are all options and they're possible.

I don't think we have to be isolated into simple categories of "successes" and "failures." We're all human, and there's so much variety of TCKs.

People forget that McCain was a Military Brat. They chose not to make a big deal of it, but nevertheless he lived on bases in a variety of countries as a child. Does it make him a failure? Not that he lost the election, but that he chooses not to emphasize his own international background? Obama also doesn't, but people also focused on his multiracial background which means more in America than his multiculturalism.

Anyway, I think that true repatriation doesn't have to be the goal. We don't *have* to fit into our home countries, the assumption by our peers of that country is that we will, having returned "home", but we can choose not to.

For me for example, it's become a conscious choice that I don't have to fit into the US, because I know, and I tell people who ask, that I am not really American, not culturally. I also tell them that I don't have to be. Americans in particular believe somewhat in assimilation, and everyone believes in finding a place they belong, whether they have it already or not.

But I think that humans are too complicated to slide too conveniently into slots. We're not square OR round pegs, even though we try to build square and round holes for ourselves. Sometimes we fit, then we grow, things change, and we don't. Sometimes we try so hard to fit that we squeeze ourselves in. But it's no black and white thing, and we shouldn't feel pressured to try to fit in because we really don't have to.

Say it loud enough that you're different, gain recognition of the fact, and people will at least allow you to be the strange person who's a little foreign, which is better than being the annoying person who insists they're "different from everyone else."

I know it, but I still rather live in foreign country
because I know what to expect more as a foreigner
living in foreign country than living as 'hidden immigrant'
in my own passport country
Besides, it's more easier to make friends with
ppl from non-my-passport country ppl than ppl
from my passport country
They will expect me to act like them since I have
same nationality, while my 'foreign' friends will
still respect me as who I am
In other words, they will expect me to conform
At least being foreigner is easy to make transition
because I give myself more patience to adjust
to their culture because locals over there are
willing to do it
My unwritten standard about my own passport country
is that no matter what kind of TCK i am, people
will expect me to know a lot about my passport
country and be proud of it, so I am willing to build
knowledge about it and still have pride toward
my passport country