[piano intro] - Hello, I'm Nido Qubein.

Welcome to Side by Side.

My guest today calls herself culturally fluid.

She leads a media company that celebrates the cultural in between.

That's a lot of people, more than 240 million people worldwide.

Today, we'll meet Doni Aldine, the CEO of Culturs 21st Century Cultural Identity Media.

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Comprehensive facility support with the Budd Group.

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[upbeat music] - Doni Aldine, welcome to Side by Side.

What you do is intriguing.

You use terms I need to learn the definition of, you talk about the world in a multicultural facet, and yet to bring us all together as human beings in a fellowship.

So I need to understand what is it that you do?

- Well, first of all, thank you for having me.

It's such a pleasure to be here.

What is it that I do?

Well, we try to have an impact on the world and try to get people to open their minds because the world that we live in today isn't the same as in years past.

There are a number of people, like me, who are culturally fluid, and that means they have a foot in two or more cultural worlds, okay?

So in my case, I'm not only Trinidadian and Costa Rican, but I grew up in, I like to say five continents, but we know that Central America is not a continent, so whatever.

But four continents and seven cultures by the time I was 19, and since then, I mean I've been to so many countries, but there are so many people who grew up like that.

Whether they're military brats, missionary kids, international business kids, as well as now, unfortunately, well always so many refugees.

But right now we have so many crises internationally and immigrants, right?

And migrants as well.

So, so many people that are geographically mobile around the world and even within a certain country.

And in that, let's say the United States, you traverse a number of cultures.

And so you have to learn, I call it growing up on beach sand instead of concrete.

Instead of having that strong, stable foundation, it kind of moves and it's strong, but it moves underneath your feet and you have to be able to adapt to it.

And as you get older that adaptation is very helpful for you.

So what we do at Cultures Media, is we make sure that people have a sense of belonging when you don't quite fit, you're in the shades of gray.

So our brand colors are black, white, and shades of gray, with a little bit of red and a little bit of bronze, and the red is for the blood ties of family.

The bronze is for the color of skin, many shades for many different people.

But it allows you to have a broader scope, a more open mind, and to be able to adapt to people in situations very well.

So we work on making sure culturally fluid people have a sense of belonging.

That there are people who get them, who understand who they are and where they come from.

- How do you identify them?

And then how do you serve them?

- The identification is interesting when you're in person, it's like a magnet.

I can almost feel it with people.

I feel it with you, right?

And usually when I ask them a few questions, aha, there it is.

I knew it, I knew you were one of us.

But often people know that they've grown up in two different countries, or three or four or seven different countries, or they have been very mobile while they were growing up.

The key is it has to be in your core years of being, when you're forming your identity.

And so between age two and 15, while you're figuring out who you are, it becomes part of your sense of self.

So we ask those questions to identify who are these people?

But within that, as I mentioned, there are a number of subsets.

So the missionary kid, the military brat, and each of those subsets also have different nuances that are important just for them.

So understanding who they are is about understanding how they grew up.

- So this is different than ethnicity?

- [Doni] Yes.

- In other words, someone could be living in New York, their parents could be Italian.

- [Doni] Yes.

- That's not what we are talking about.

- Correct.

- We're talking about people who actually lived and experienced different cultures of the world.

- [Doni] Yes.

- Because of their parents, or in your case from different places and/or because they simply moved missionaries, people in the service, and so on.

- Yes, so when you look at the missionary brat, military kid, et cetera, international business kid, those are called a third culture kids.

So your first culture is typically your passport culture.

Your second culture is all the places that you've lived because of your parents' occupation, right?

And then that forms what's called an interstitial culture, but a culture that's really made of your experience.

It helps you develop who you are.

But beyond that, you spoke about ethnicity, multi-ethnic people fit this as well.

Often first generation people.

at home you're one way, and then you go out to school.

Let's say you live in the US or even if you live in Australia, but your parents are from Taiwan and I don't know China, let's say.

That wasn't a very long stretch, but they're not from Australia.

- Yes.

- So they may act like their home cultures in your home.

- Yes.

- But then you go out and go to school, - I understand language, values.

- Exactly.

- Et cetera.

- Exactly.

- So why is it important that, these multicultural individual, the name of the company is Culturs 21st Century, and it's spelled C-U-L-T-U-R-S. Did you, did you fail spelling in school?

[laughter] - I did not,.

- No?

- Thankfully.

- Yes.

- However, the missing E stands for the hidden cultural identity of our population, right.

- Which means what?

- You may look at someone, someone may look at you, and they may not know your story.

- [Nido] Yes.

- But your story is not what they would've expected, right?

- [Nido] I see.

- My story is definitely not what they would've expected.

Most people look at me no matter where I am in the world, and I sound and kind of look African American, but I'm Trinidadian, Costa Rican.

So often when people think I'm just like them, after a few minutes they think, oh, well maybe you're just a little strange 'cause I don't get you, right?

- [Nido] Yeah.

- Well, you don't get me because I'm not what you expected.

- [Nido] I see.

- Yes.

- Very interesting.

- [Doni] Yeah.

- And you say that there's 240 million culturally fluid people in the US?

- Even more, around the world.

- [Nido] Around the world.

- So 240 million.

So that - - That sounds like a small number actually.

Given 8 billion people.

- So if you think about it, 200, so that was as of 2018.

And it was growing at 20% a year at that time, okay?

- [Nido] I see.

- So it's much bigger now.

I don't have the number for today.

However, at 238 million, that would be Canada plus Australia, those two populations times four, it would be the fifth largest country in the world, Yeah.

And Pico Iyer, who is an author who also grew up internationally, he's from India, but I don't think ever has lived in India.

Japan is one of the countries he lived in a lot, the United States, and he speaks about this in a TED Talk, that has over 4 million views, it's pretty ubiquitous.

There's so many people who grow up like this.

But back to your question about how do we work with this population, we try to represent them.

We try to give them a sense of belonging through all of our media, whether it's video, podcast, print magazine, which I have one for you, I have to remember to give that to you.

- And you mentioned missionaries, you mentioned armed services.

- Yes.

- But really it's more than that, right?

Global companies are transferring their people to work all over the world.

- [Doni] Yes.

- Wherever they have businesses.

The mobility of our society has in been enhanced and increased in a very measurable way.

- [Doni] Yes.

- So that that's part of all that, correct?

- Exactly and the children of those people are the ones who are most affected.

And it's really important for the parents to understand because it's bad enough when a child is going through puberty or being a teenager, but to understand what they're going through on this level is very important because it will affect them for the rest of their lives.

It changes who they become because it is literally folded into their identity.

- And I think about American families who live in many parts of the world and they have children and they put their children in American schools', lots of schools that are called Americans, elementary school, high school.

But it has, school has locals, it has Americans, it has Brits, it has Swedes, and so on.

And that somewhere between two and 15, you said, could be influenced measurably.

- [Doni] Yes.

- So what is it that you say to someone like that, that makes them more comfortable, that arms them with the tools and knowledge they need to deal with this fluctuating imagery they might have about different cultures and so on.

You must have some principles that you teach them.

- Being in those schools today is so much different than when I grew up.

And there's also the ones who don't grow up in those American schools, which is what I did, right?

I was in the culture.

- [Nido] In the local school?

- Yes, I think the only place I grew, one of the countries I grew up in was Turkey.

And actually I did not go to school when I was in Turkey.

I came back to New York after that.

And I remember I skipped two grades.

I had to take a test because they didn't know where to put me.

But I just remembered that.

But other than that, I went to local schools.

So you have people that go to American schools, you have people that go to local schools.

Either way they have that cultural immersion in different ways depending on their environment.

So principles, we don't teach them principles about who they are.

They already know who they are.

We let them know that we understand who they are, because usually you have to hide that because the rest of the world doesn't get who you are.

Many people, I mean, one of the beauties of my job is I get these emails, I see people, I mean, talk about touching your heart, if I go to speak somewhere, I was in Scotland last year speaking and people drive miles, hours, to come and see you maybe have me sign in magazine.

And I'm just impressed.

Like, oh my gosh, are you kidding me?

But they have tears in their eyes.

They send these emails, I've never felt seen before.

I didn't know anyone cared.

I didn't know this mattered.

And I did that before I was 35.

I didn't pay attention to that background.

I didn't think it meant anything, right?

And I read a book, "Third Culture Kids Growing Up Among Worlds" by two co-authors.

Ruth Van Keken is still with us.

And she's my mentor and love her dearly.

She's a mentor for many, many thousands of TCKs around the world, third culture kids, and also, oh gosh, Michael Pollock, who's no longer with us.

And that book, for over 30 years, has been the holy grail for this type of identity.

But now the identity has grown, as you mentioned, multi-ethnic people.

And people, I mean, we have digital nomads, so many people around the world whose kids are being affected, right?

And knowing that they're not alone, knowing that there are other people like them, and knowing that we understand who they are, that is the principle of it.

- It helps them in life.

- Yes.

- What if they didn't know that?

What are some of the, what are some of the obstacles they would face - - [Doni] Yes.

- If they didn't have that awareness?

- So there's so many, the research around this is vast and very exciting to me, as you can see, and I just perk up right away.

But sometimes you end up with confusion, some people become wallflowers, other people hide who they are.

I'll give you some examples.

Actually, Barack Obama is a third culture kid.

So was John McCain.

So when I watched that election, I watched it through the lens of their identities when they were growing up and seeing how they were interacting.

And that's a different way than I'm sure most of the population looked at it, right?

What happens often is you may not be as true to yourself as you could be, because people think that people either understand that self or want to see that self.

And I think that's where the tears come from, where people say, I have never felt seen like this before.

I've never felt understood.

So we want to take someone who may feel like an invisible outlier.

And here's the key, you may not know it right away.

I didn't know it until I read this book and I sat down and I thought about it.

You're an invisible outlier because this is just your every day.

You don't think anything of it.

And we want that person to transform to feeling seen, heard, and understood.

- When you speak of, you use words like digital nomad, global nomad, cultural identity.

I'm trying to understand all these terms.

- [Doni] Yeah.

- Are we talking about morays and folk ways and values that maybe you grew up with in one culture, but now you're living in a different culture that may or may not appreciate and uphold those same morays, folk ways, and values?

- Absolutely.

- Is that part of what we're talking about?

- Absolutely.

- And how you therefore adapt to it?

- Absolutely, so someone who grows up on that beach sand, they've learned, let's say you grew up in Germany and moved to Columbia, right?

Absolutely different cultures, not just from the top of the iceberg perspective, but as you say, everything below the surface, the values, how things are dealt with in Latin cultures, time has a different meaning.

In Germany, well, it's not so much there this way anymore, I went to a university in Germany.

In Germany, things are very much on time.

- [Nido] Yes.

- I was, last year in Spain, speaking to one of my German friends, and they said, no, it's not like that anymore.

- Yeah.

- And that may be.

- New generations.

- Yes.

- Well, I think that's part of social media as well.

- Yes, yes, yes.

And the blending of the world.

- The Germans have work ethic, serious.

- Yes.

- Get it done.

- Yes.

- And so on, versus a more laid back.

- Yes.

- Three hour dinner kind of culture.

- Yes, even in Columbia, or even in Argentina, when I was there, time really has such a different meeting.

I sometimes don't understand.

If you're supposed to have a meeting or a party at seven and you show up at 10, even in Kenya this happened, you show up at 10, it's like, why are you here so early?

I'm like, well, I thought I was three hours late.

Like I never could understand how it worked, but that's the way the culture was.

And so people who grew up in these different ways, they're able to traverse these very easily.

- So, you know, for example, US State Department, we teach cultural differences to, let's say diplomats.

Let's say someone's gonna be a US ambassador.

- [Doni] Yes.

- They literally run through a course and say, in this culture, you don't put the sole of your shoe in someone's face.

In this culture, you must finish the food, otherwise the host will be insulted, in this culture you don't kiss or you kiss on both cheeks, or you kiss them three times or don't shake hands or whatever.

But, you're talking about deeper than that.

- That and deeper.

And it's about, so it's great to teach people.

So now we have so many digital nomads or third culture adults, that's people who travel after, travel to other countries after the age of 18.

- [Nido] Travel for pleasure or for business?

- Either one after the age of 18, because then they have to understand those new cultures.

But while you're forming your identity, you are traversing those cultures and it's becoming part of you, right?

And so as you talk about those business people or at the State Department, they're learning how to interact in those new cultures.

Think of their children that they may take with them and they're living in those new cultures.

And some of these kids, case of Pico Iyer, and many others, they've never lived at home in their passport country.

So if they have to repatriate or.

- Passport countries where they were born.

- Yes, yes.

And sometimes the passport country is not the same as the parents' passport country, right.

So if you have to repatriate or if you've gone to a place that's supposed to be home, you're lost, you're confused.

- But my point is, you're talking about more than etiquette than protocol.

- [Doni] Yes.

- You're talking about deep seated effects.

- [Doni] Yes.

- That a human being could feel, experience, and therefore could show up in healthy ways or unhealthy ways.

- Exactly, and again.

- Like self-esteem, like what I can do, like.

- [Doni] Yes.

- Those kinds of things.

- And that is why some people may choose to be wallflowers, other people may choose to be shouters, they're out and open.

But it's how they decide to process the experiences while they're figuring out who they are as people.

So your example with adults, that's great.

We've already, we have that solid foundation, we had that concrete that we grew up on, and I know who I am and my culture is this way.

I'm going to another culture.

I'll learn their, not just their superficial, food and dance, et cetera, but as you say, the deep seated items about that culture, so I can interact effectively.

But if you're a child that is being integrated into who you are as a person.

And if you do that multiple times while you're growing up, all of that is integrated.

And when you're an adult, now you make a decision on who I am.

And you can't always show it because other people may not get it.

The thing that I think is wonderful about third culture kids or culturally fluid people is it doesn't matter if you were born in Columbia and moved to Germany and then went to school in the United States, and ended up in college in Kenya.

Or you were born in Russia and you moved to Costa Rica, and ended up in France.

Both of you have the same experience.

And that experience allows you to understand each other very well.

So you now share the same culture, and that's why they're called third culture kids.

- [Nido] I see.

- Yes.

- So, you know, I guess I have a very remedial understanding of multicultural.

So I think of it as, let's take in the States for example.

- [Doni] Yeah.

- People come from all over the world to live in the States, United States, and many of 'em want to assimilate into society, right?

They want to forget language, they don't wanna teach it to their children.

They may or may not celebrate certain traditions in their home.

You see what I mean?

- Yes.

- So they, they want to assimilate in society.

So to be part and parcel of that culture.

You are saying there is, they're always cultural differences, whether we accept it or not.

And it may show up in ways known or unknown.

And therefore it is important that you deal with the foundational pillars, if you will, of this third word culture person.

- So a third.

- My son, for example, speaks five languages, has been to 177 countries.

He's a travel journalist.

He has a depth of understanding about cultures because he has been to every country many times.

He studied abroad in several countries and so on.

But that's not what you're talking about.

- Exactly, so tell me, where did your son grow up?

- He grew up in the United States.

- [Doni] Okay.

- But he studied abroad when he was in college.

He learned these different languages.

He had an intense interest in other cultures.

- [Doni] Yes.

- But you're saying there's different than.

- Yes, so your son would be part of our community because you are, you've immigrated to the United States.

- [Nido] Yes.

- So I am assuming that you've taught him some things about your culture when you were at home, right?

- [Doni] Yes.

- I also could assume, I'd have to ask him some questions, that that probably affected how he saw the world.

And now the world is this vast place that he can explore.

- Yes, yes.

- Right?

- So he is part of our community, but in a different level than someone who, so I'm assuming when he did the study abroad, I think you said he was in college, I'm assuming he was past 18.

- Yeah, 18, 19.

- So his identity was already formed.

However, it was primed by having a father who came from somewhere else and learning the morays and the values that you probably had when you were growing up and knowing how to traverse those, right?

And now he's gone into all these other cultures and he's more easily able to learn those.

He has an interest in language.

Now there's other ways that people can have that kind of interest, but very often I find they have a background where they're part of our audience.

Even if it's a little part.

That is different than someone who grew up in a number of countries and they can have a few different outcomes.

You may wanna choose to be in one place.

I don't wanna travel anymore.

I don't wanna ever change a job, I just want to stay right here.

Because their entire lives were, was about moving, and their entire life was about moving.

It's interesting, we had talked about earlier about whether I'm a global nomad or if I'm culturally fluid.

That's one of the reasons I really don't identify with being a global nomad.

People who are monocultural and grew up in one place, see me as a global nomad often.

I don't see.

- And technically, what is the definition?

Global nomad - And culturally fluid?

I don't see myself as a global nomad because I don't wanna move around like that.

I may travel to other places because I love culture, but I tend to go and stay at least for a month, maybe longer if I'm able, right?

- Versus a global nomad who does what?

- A global nomad could be, they just love to travel.

They want to be around, there's digital nomads now, who travel so they can work in different places or work.

- [Nido] I see.

- When they travel.

But I'm not addicted to the, I shouldn't say they're addicted.

It's not my intention to travel in that way.

I like to experience culture.

And I don't necessarily like to move around because I did that when I was a child, right?

- [Nido] Yes, yes.

- It's so funny.

I had the opportunity to be on Semester at Sea twice, once when I was a student, and once when I was an administrator and an adjunct professor.

And as a student, I chose to go and live in Germany and study abroad instead of doing Semester at Sea.

As exciting as it sounded.

And as an adult, it's so interesting.

So many other administrators, they think, oh, we're going to Semester at Sea, we've done all these countries.

That sounded terrible to me.

- [Nido] Yes.

Yeah, it's a fascinating topic.

- Yes.

- I think we barely touched the surface of it.

And I'm gonna do more reading about this to understand about the differences between the two.

- Yeah.

- Because I do think the world is smaller and more connected, and we all have a duty to get to know cultures beyond our own understanding of our culture.

But thank you for being here today.

- Thank you.

- And thank you for the work that you're doing.

And our world is better because we become more aware and more informed, thank you so much.

- Thank you so much.

[upbeat music] - [Announcer] Funding for Side by Side with Nido Qubein is made possible by.

- [Narrator] Coca-Cola Consolidated is honored to make and serve 300 brands and flavors, locally.

[upbeat music] Thanks to our teammates.

We are Coca-Cola Consolidated, your local bottler.

- [Announcer] The Budd Group has been serving the southeast for over 60 years.

Specializing in janitorial, landscape, and facility solutions, our trusted staff delivers exceptional customer satisfaction.

Comprehensive facility support with the Budd Group.

- [Narrator] Truist.

We are here to help people, communities, and businesses thrive in North Carolina and beyond.

The commitment of our teammates makes the difference, every day.

Truist, leaders in banking, unwavering in care.