Border people grow up having a great deal of life experience crossing back and forth across borders.
Those who grow up habitually crossing back and forth between countries, languages, cultures, races, ethnicities, social classes, ages, genders, belief systems, interests, work functions, etc. unconsciously learn ways of crossing with ease. (See mention of Borderlander Children on pages 35 and 257 in Third Culture Kids book, revised edition by Pollack and VanReken.)
Those living on the hyphen bridges between a dominant ethnicity (American in the U.S.) and an additional ethnicity (African-American Mexican-American, Native-American, Arab-American, Korean-American, Japanese-American, etc.) maintain connections with both.
If you, too, grew up in-between you may be a Border Person and have
A Border Mindset:
- A sense of comfort with ambiguity
- Acceptance of multiple world views
- A search for synthesis
Communication Competencies for Boundary Spanning
Intergroup Focus
- Show intergroup respect
- Express intergroup empathy, understanding
- Build networks
For more see “Border People” in Organizations.