I opened the Snapchat video to see forty faces of my Savannah summer musical castmates shouting, “WE’LL MISS YOU, ‘THAILAND’!!” You see, in America, I’m a foreigner, even though I was born here. I am a child of international diplomacy, raised for three-year sojourns in magical Burma, mountainous Lesotho, and the Land of Smiles, Thailand (hence my nickname).

Interspersed through my voyages were nine years of layovers in Virginia, which gave me a home base. My identity is a mix of Buddhist temples, Sesotho villages, and Fourth of July cookouts – and I wouldn’t want it any other way.