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Since the founding of our nation, the United States has been a melting pot for a growing mass of individuals. Along with the mass growth of the population comes an astonishing sense of diversity and cultural value. Immigrants who come to America are accompanied by their traditional customs, language, values, and beliefs, thus resulting in many individuals who live in a multicultural world. As a result, we see a variety of cultures everywhere, whether it be on the bus, in the super market, or in our schools. However, as more and more immigrants integrate into American society, original cultures and traditions are lost. This process is called acculturation and lends the question of why. Why is culture lost? Why is it difficult to incorporate …show more content…
As previously stated, religion is a large influencer in the acculturation process. This is evidently seen in certain cultures such as in the Catholic community. The Catholic faith teaches women’s primary role as mothers and caregivers. This may lead to women under the Catholic faith to avoid being active in public or non-family tasks and activities (Koeske). The restrictions set on certain individuals, by religion, limits them from fusing the new culture with their traditions from home, ultimately disallowing the individual from growing and learning. Now that we know that the acculturation process affects all members in an immigrant family, we can see that the youth in these families struggle to become independent. These feelings are brought on by the youth feeling obligated to help their families while the American society is pushing for independence. This can lead to confusion among the youth in every family and can cause issues relating to their self-identity. While the youth continue to feel obligated to care for their families, they will find it more difficult to become independent and much harder to integrate the new culture into their lives when their family is promoting old
The Allotment and Assimilation Era of the 1880’s to the 1930’s had a widespread and devastating impact on the Native American population in the United States. These two policies were attempts by the U.S. Federal Government to separate tribes, and indoctrinate the Native American youth to further assimilate the Native American population into the western body of culture. These policies were allotment, which broke apart the tribal land of the Native American people, and boarding schools, which attempted to teach the Native American youth about western culture and ways.
People of Filipino decent have a rich culture that emphasizes tradition and family; as well as allows for a political and sociocultural movement for Filipino immigrants in their new countries. Theme one focuses on the concept of culture and how Filipinos present themselves as a race. Although they reside in the United States, it was rare for most informants to identify themselves as Americans. Rather, they viewed their culture as being morally correct and righteous and American culture as deviant or aberrant. Explicitly, the issue with Filipinos in terms of American culture was their concept of family and the U.S. families’ lac k thereof. They argue that in their culture family is a dominant aspect that preaches assistance and care for one another. Additionally, they disagree with the ideology that American families have in terms they raise their children. Filipinos take care of their children and continue to offer them resources and shelter regardless of their age. Conversely, they believe that American parents lack in care for their children and ultimately get the same from them in return. Filipino culture also emphasizes gender roles and restrictions, particularly female gender. Females are expected to take on the role of the
1. Becoming Bicultural is another form of assimilation. It entails people of different cultures borrowing from one another’s culture what they consider right and integrating it within their individual cultures. The United States being a nation of immigrants and due to the recent massive immigration, the country is led to a nationwide struggle with the need to become bicultural, a difficult and sometimes painful process of navigating between ethnic cultures. Some former minority groups are now becoming the dominating group due to their high rate of immigration and high birth rate. The Latino and Asian populations form the largest portion of the leading groups that have literally changed the face of the nation and thus calling in for the need to become bicultural.
The process of acculturation “a social and psychological process of change when one culture comes in contact with another” does not directly affect mental health but the process can be stressful, even if positive over negative, or a mix of the two. If the process is positive such as “improving one’s life” while challenging may not have a negative effect or be as stressful in the next case where … if the process of acculturation is negative, the process may be stressful making for acculturative stress (Tafoya, 2011). And in the case of a latino/a coming into the United States there are several potential factors leading to stress. Those may include discrimination, whether perceived and/or direct and may come in the form of unfair treatment (Among others) and language barriers. Again, many potentially stressful issues that come with one culture coming in contact with another, and the process of becoming accustomed to a new culture (Torres, Driscoll, & Voell, 2012).
Morrison, M., & James, S. (2009). Portuguese Immigrant Families: The Impact of Acculturation. Family Process, 48(1), 151-166. doi:10.1111/j.1545-5300.2009.01273.x
The type of parenting style used by parents may be determined by the parent’s own cultural heritage. As immigrants move to a new country, it will take time to learn the new culture and to be accustomed to their ways. Therefore, it would not be surprising if first generation immigrant parents place the hardest strain on their children. Since they have not yet been accustomed to American culture, they will be more likely to adhere to their traditional ways. Immigrants who have been in the country longer may have slowly compromised traditional views with new
Sometimes it is the result of losing their identity. In the article “The Phases of Culture Shock”, Pamela J. Brink and Judith Saunders describe four phases of culture shock. They are: Honeymoon Phase, Disenchantment Phase, Beginning Resolution Phase, and Effective Function Phase. These phases denote some of the stages that exemplify culture shock. The four phases are illustrated in the articles “New Immigrants: Portraits in Passage” by Thomas Bentz, “Immigrant America: A Portrait” by Alejandro Portes and Ruben G. Rumbaut, “When I Was Puerto Rican” by Esmeralda Santiago, “Today’s Immigrants, Their Stories” by Thomas Kessner and Betty Boyd Caroli, and lastly, “The New Americans: Immigrant Life in Southern California” by Ulli Steltzer, and are about the experiences of This essay will examine the four phases of culture shock and classify the experiences of these immigrants by the different phases of culture shock identified.
Psychological distress, acculturation, and help-seeking attitudes were all measured using specific indexes and scales set for the point of interest. The hypotheses of this research was that even within the African American community, one would find disparities in the treatment of psychological issues – just based on the method of acculturation used, and their views on society. There are 4 basic modes of acculturation: traditionalist, assimilationist, integrationist, and marginalist. It is thought that the integrationist acculturation strategy is the best for optimizing and maximizing well-being. Although there is not a difference in the number of African Americans that have mental health problems when compared to European-Americans, the percentage of those who seek professional mental health services due to emotional distress is representatively lower. The rate at which African Americans receive psychological help services is half as much as that of European Americans – there is a need for an explanation of that statistic. The goal of this paper is to determine the reasoning behind the help-seeking disparities in African Americans and the field of psychological health. In order to make health services fair, we must first understand the reasoning behind why or why not one would seek out professional help in the first place. Understanding ethno cultural attitudes and other cultural variables will allow the health care field to better relate and help all people more uniformly and to the best of their needs.
Nowadays, discussing many issues, political or social, facing the United States has become a divisive enterprise, and often devolves into shouting matches between the various viewpoints. By far the most overlooked and problematic circumstance we face is that of race, diversity, and assimilation into American society. As painful and uncomfortable as it is to admit, despite the progress made in the last 150 years, the United States is doing a pretty terrible job integrating immigrants and other minorities into our society, despite the amends we have made as a nation.
One of the most important concepts that I have learned from class is Assimilation Theory. This theory is based on the adaptation that a certain ethnic group goes through in order to fit in and survive in the new dominant society. For example, according to the book the United States in known to be a predominantly white cultural society, therefore many ethnic groups from all over who choose to come to the U.S often have to assimilate and adapt to the social and cultural norms. Assimilation theory affects many ethnic groups in sense that it can change the way they behave and live in a society. Whenever another ethnic group immigrates to a place where there is a dominant ethnic group they often have to assimilate to the dominant group’s social, economic, and cultural behaviors and customs to survive. For example in the U.S, there are many minority groups from all over the globe who immigrated to this country and they often have to go through various changes and adaptations to fit into society and gain citizenship in the country. These changes can be a challenge for them because they have to choose between their own cultural values, beliefs, and behaviors and assimilate to the U.S’ cultural values and customs. In the book it states that “their cultural ancestry is English, Scottish, Dutch and German which is the Anglo-Saxon core.” Therefore, the culture that immigrants in the U.S. have to adapt to is the Anglo-Saxon culture/ “American culture.” For most minorities immigrating to the U.S, one of the major factors that affected them is language barrier. In the United States English is the dominant language, many ...
Times are changing and I feel like I am forced to conform to the everyday social norms of America, which makes me feel impuissance. Racial identity, which refers to identifying with a social group with similar phenotypes and racial category, is the only experience that I have with life (Organista, 2010). Racial ethnicity was used to build my self-esteem and to keep me in the dark when it came to how society treats individuals of darker complexion. However, once I left the confines of my family and neighborhood, I was forced to befriend and interact with individuals that had different cultural values and beliefs than me. This experience caused me to learn how to appreciate other racial and ethnic groups and their cultural values and belief. This is an accurate definition, of acculturation because I was able to understand and fit in with individuals different from me, while maintaining my own culture and ethnic identity. Therefore, knowing the importance of my ancestry, while acculturating and developing my own identity was all used
In conclusion, it is important for new immigrants to embrace old and new culture. Assimilation in our current society is much different than it was a long time ago. In the past, people people with different beliefs had to change religion to become a part of a Fahmy 3 society and citizens. However, in today’s society, immigrants are not forced to change their religion. “But it was the countless hours I spent with Grandmama that were my real education”(Wayson Choy, 45).
Contributing factors to our diverse population are Americanization, assimilation, nativism, and xenophobia. In Human Differences, Kent Koppleman states Americanization “…encourages immigrants to abandon their heritage and conform to American ways” (Koppelman, 2011). Assimilation, adopting other’s traits (Koppelman, 2011), can be unfavorable if multicultural perspectives are not introduced in curriculum to help further inform. Assimilation and Americanization can be effects from extreme anti-immigrant ideas, like nativism and xenophobia. Nativism occurs when people from a country feel threatened by immigrants causing xenophobia, or prejudice against immigrants (Koppelman, 2011).
At some point in our lives we experience a culture as an outsider by moving from one culture to another.In the world today there are so many different cultures and not one of them is found to be the same.Instead they all have something that makes them unique, whether its language or even the clothes they wear and their behavior as well.The differences they have is what separates them from one another and who ever joins that particular culture must get accustomed to their way of life.In the society today we have many people immigrating to the United States to start a new and better life but what they soon begin to realize is that it’s a whole new world out there and in order to survive they have to get accustomed to the new way of life which is much different from their lives before.
“America has always welcomed anyone willing to assimilate to its national character.” For those who gracefully fall into american society and globalization this quote by author Nancy Pearcey may seem unassuming and seemingly unambiguous. A true statement in fact for those looking to fully integrate into american society, cut ties with their own cultural delineations, and adopt western ideas. With that said for those looking to hold on to their cultures while in American society or simply live in their society and embrace their own culture it has not always been so easy nor has America been as welcoming. This struggle is both witnessed and described in the novel's Power Politics by internationally acclaimed author Arundhati Roy and The Joy Luck Club by the illustrious author Amy Tan. Although analyzing the topic from different directions and perspective a common theme can be seen being highlighted in both books. That being that American integration and assimilation is not always easy, wanted, or welcomed.