Discuss and provide examples of the three means by which a person can become a border dweller. Answer:

Border Dwellers Through Travel: Individuals travel between cultures both voluntarily and involuntarily, and for both long and short periods. Voluntary short-term travelers include study-abroad students, corporate personnel, missionaries, and military people. Voluntary long-term travelers include immigrants who settle in other locations, usually seeking what they perceive is a better life, as is the case for many immigrants who come to the United States. Involuntary short-term travelers include refugees forced into cultural migration because of war, famine, or unbearable economic hardship. For example, many people fled Iraq and Afghanistan during the wars there and only return when they feel it is safe to do so (UNHCR, 2013). Involuntary long-term travelers are those who are forced to permanently migrate to a new location, including the many diasporic groups referred to previously. Border Dwellers Through Socialization: The second group of border dwellers is composed of people who grow up living on the borders between cultural groups. Examples include ethnic groups, such as Latinos, Asian Americans, and African Americans, who live in the predominantly White United States, as well as people who grow up negotiating multiple sexual orientations or religions. In addition to those who must negotiate the two cultures they live within, the United States has increasing numbers of multiracial people who often grow up negotiating multiple cultural realities (Yen, 2011). Border Dwellers Through Relationships: Finally, many people live on cultural borders because they have intimate partners whose cultural background differs from their own. Within the United States increasing numbers of people cross borders of nationality, race, and ethnicity in this way, creating a quiet revolution (Root, 2001). In fact, by 2010, 15 percent of all new marriages in the United States were between spouses of a different race or ethnicitymore than double the number in 1980 (Wang, 2012). Overall, partners in interethnic and interracial romantic relationships have faced greater challenges than those establishing relationships across religions, nationalities, and class groups.