Growing up as a black TCK in Germany

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | RSS

Trevor Gillies talks about his experience with racism and ethnic inequality as a U.S. third-culture kid in Deutschland

Spending your childhood and adolescence abroad and being raised as a third-culture kid (TCK) is a unique experience. As the child of U.S. service members, Trevor Gillies grew up as the only black kid in a Southern Germany town in the ’80s and ’90s. Today, as the United States and Germany are still grappling with unresolved issues of racism and inequality, Trevor’s story illustrates how our difference can make a difference, rather than be seen as a threat or a challenge.

Trevor was born a U.S. citizen in Nürnberg, Germany and he lived in the country until he was 20 years old. He grew up bilingual in his English-speaking family and being enrolled in the German school system for 9 years. Unlike most other American service families which are deployed in Germany, the Gillies’ did not live on a military base which meant for Trevor that he was fully immersed in the regional Franconian culture and its dialect.

During his conversation with The Culture Guy Trevor shares his stories:

of attending public school as the only person who looked different than the rest of the student body
of his teacher, Frau Fuchs, who ensured that everyone in class was treated equally
and of the girl whose parents didn’t want her to hang out with “a guy like him”

Today Trevor serves as Key Account Manager for I.K. Hofmann USA, a German personnel services company with U.S. headquarters in Atlanta, GA and their international hub in Nürnberg, Germany. He has been with the company for ten years. In his current position with I.K. Hofmann he is based out of Chattanooga, TN and is responsible for business development, relationship management and acquiring new clients throughout the Southeast Region.

Many companies often don’t fully understand how the special skills of bicultural team members can be leveraged to improve organizational performance. Read more about this topic on our blog.

Connect with Trevor via LinkedIn, Facebook, or his company.

Do you have feedback for The Culture Guy, Questions, Comments?

Listener feedback for The Culture Guy Podcast continues to be excellent and we encourage you to keep sending us your input for future episodes:

What are your tips and tricks for cultural adjustment?
What were some of your most memorable “cultural fool moments”?
Which topics would you like to hear discussed on future podcast episodes?

To send in your feedback for the show, please email Christian and use our social media outlets: The Culture Mastery Facebook Page, the Facebook Page for The Culture Guy Podcast, our company’s Twitter feed, Christian’s personal Twitter, and our Instagram profile.

Sharing is caring
In fact, we would be honored if you could help us spread the word about The Culture Guy Podcast. Tell your networks and show people this page so we can get a feel for which cross-cultural topics you are most passionate about.

Please use the hashtag #TheCultureGuy when you share this idea with your connections.

If you are interested in learning more about cultural competence and foreign language skills, we invite you to sign up for our newsletter, The Culture Reflections. As a token of our appreciation you will receive a series of complimentary white papers on cultural competence from us!
Go ahead and sign up here now and we will send you the download links to the FREE white papers via email.