Growing up with God and Empire

<p>This book analyzes the memoirs of 42 'missionary kids' - the children of North American Protestant missionaries in countries all over the world during the 20th century. Using a postcolonial lens the book explores ways in which the missionary enterprise was part of or intersected with the Western colonial enterprise and ways in which a colonial mindset is unconsciously manifested in these memoirs. The book explores how the memoirists' sites and experiences are exoticized; the missionary kids' likelihood of learning - or not learning - local languages; the missionary families' treatment of servants and other local people; and gender race and social class aspects of the missionary kids' experiences. Like other Third Culture Kids the memoirists are migrants travelers border-crossers and border-dwellers who alternate between insider and outsider statuses and their words shed light on the effects of movement and travel on children's lives and development.</p>