Poetic Auto Ethnographer: Justin Hopkins
Participant: Self study
Project: Cross-cultural expereinces/ Third culture
Source: Hopkins, J. B. (2015). Coming “home”: An autoethnographic exploration of Third Culture Kid transition. Qualitative Inquiry, 21(19), 812-820.
Abstract
Born in
the United States, I grew up in Senegal, West Africa, where my parents worked
as missionary linguists. “Coming ‘Home’” tells the story of my return to the
United States after graduating from high school. I frame my personal memories,
shared in the form of poems (following the methodology outlined by David
Hanauer’s Poetry as Research), with reflexive analysis (using the theory
of David Pollock and Ruth Van Reken’s Third Culture Kids). I examine the
difficulty of leaving particular places and people from the “host culture,” as
well as the challenge of transition back into the “home” culture.
Involvement:
Some Time Before Leaving Senegal
Sitting in a frangipani tree,
Settled into its branches,
Feeling the knots in my side,
Against my neck,
Feeling the sun on my face and
arms,
Remembering…
Sleeping surrounded by mosquito
netting and mud brick,
Hearing the scorpion scuttling
across the vinyl floor,
Playing soccer in the sand at
twilight,
Hiding from a man in a costume made
of bark, shrieking and clashing machetes,
Laughing at baby parrots fighting
for food from a yoghurt cup,
Listening to Mom or Dad reading
aloud by the glow of a hissing gas lamp,
Riding a bicycle over a bridge with
a crocodile living under it,
Taking a bucket bath,
Climbing the baobob tree,
Speaking Jola, the local language,
Dancing to the djembe drums,
Relishing the sound of rain on a
tin roof,
Seeing soldiers walking and tanks
rolling into the village,
Leaving the village,
Giving candy and bread to beggar
boys,
Riding in taxis with cracked
windshields and without floorboards,
Watching falling stars while
camping out on rocky beach cliffs,
Swallowing bitter malaria pills,
Haggling in the marketplace for a
watch or a calculator,
Making tea with my brother on a
thatch mat,
Drinking Coke from a perspiring
bottle,
Wearing brightly colored trousers
made for tourists,
Learning French, the colonial
language
Eating rice and fish and vegetables
from a communal bowl,
Sweating, always sweating,
Swimming in the sea, dodging
Portuguese Man-of-War jellyfish,
Smelling the eucalyptus, the smoke…
***
My methodological approach was
simple. Although I never thought of myself as a poet, David Hanauer guided me
through an established procedure to produce poetic data, summarizing “the
poetry writing process [as] a form of inquiry in which meanings of personal
experience are discovered” (p. 25). … It’s worth noting that, serendipitously,
I discovered after the fact that the five poems I composed correspond precisely
to David Pollock and Ruth Van Reken’s (2009) stages of transition from culture
to culture: involvement, leaving, transition, entering, reinvolvement (p. 66).
I included these stages in the poem’s titles.
***
Leaving:
Shortly Before Leaving Senegal
My friend leaves Senegal before I
do.
We have pictures of us together as
children,
Playing Legos,
Practicing martial arts.
Now he poses alone for a going-away
photo,
Wearing his multi-color patchwork
pants,
His dark blue suit jacket,
His Bob Marley beret.
He looks funny.
He wears rings too,
One his parents gave him,
Gold, with an inscription of Africa
on it,
And a tiny ruby for Senegal;
One I gave him,
The copy of which I wear myself,
Much less grand,
A simple, silver band,
With a friendship knot woven into
one side.
He smiles widely.
Later, probably close to midnight,
at the airport,
We hug goodbye.
And then he is gone.
On the ride back to the Center,
where I live,
I struggle to hold back tears.
Back at the Center, where I live,
I climb the wooden stairs to the
roof,
Sit in a corner, alone,
And cry,
Feeling the cool brick against my
back,
The hot breeze against my face.
He was my childhood.
He was my Africa.
And now he is gone.
***
Transition:
Leaving Senegal
My turn at the airport comes,
And I feel ready.
I carry my beat-up backpack,
And other luggage.
18 years weighs a lot.
There are more friends to bid
farewell.
We exchange gifts,
Hugs.
I drink a Coke.
I ride the bus to the plane.
I notice my last step on African
soil.
My foot moves from the ground
Onto the steel staircase to the
plane.
I slump into the window seat.
The lights on the continent fade.
***
Reinvolvement:
Some Time After Arriving Stateside
Just a few days before starting my
new job,
Cashier at a grocery store,
[My friend] was visiting.
How wonderful to walk and talk with
him again.
I woke up,
Excited to spend another day with
him.
I walked out of my room,
And met my mom.
She said something had happened.
Her voice was tense.
We went to the TV.
We watched the second plane hit.
We watched the towers fall.
I was shocked,
And afraid.
But as I saw the flags unfurl,
And shared the shock, fear, and awe
with my neighbors,
I thought,
I
live here now.
References
Hanauer,
D. I. (2010). Poetry as research:
exploring second language poetry writing.
Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Pollock,
D. C. & Van Reken, R. E. (2009). Third
culture kids: The experience of growing
up among worlds. Boston: Nicholas Brealey.