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The consequences of cultural assimilation
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Children of immigrants in America face greater challenges than the children of native-born Americans. Although many of the children of immigrants have the advantage of citizenship that their parents do not have, that advantage is often taken for granted among those children. One of the most difficult challenges faced by the children of immigrants is trying to find the perfect balance between the different cultures they are expected to abide by. They attempt to adapt to the culture that is most widely accepted by those around them while maintaining the culture that their parents have chosen to raise them in. When they begin to integrate into the surrounding culture, the children of immigrants are less likely to be accepted due to the community
I am not a child of immigrants, but maintaining one’s culture is a universal struggle in a land far from one’s ethnic origins. Lahiri suggests that without cultural connections such as family and friends, one’s culture can simply vanish if they are not in the land of ethnic origin. I have found this to be true within my own
Something that has always fascinated me is the confrontation with a completely different culture. We do not have to travel far to realize that people really lead different lives in other countries and that the saying "Home sweet home" often applies to most of us. What if we suddenly had to leave our homes and settle somewhere else, somewhere where other values and beliefs where common and where people spoke a different language? Would we still try to hang on to the 'old home' by speaking our mother tongue, practising our own religion and culture or would we give in to the new and exciting country and forget our past? And what would it be like for our children, and their children? In Identity Lessons - Contemporary Writing About Learning to Be American I found many different stories telling us what it is like to be "trapped" between two cultures. In this short essay I aim to show that belonging to two cultures can be very confusing.
Sung, Betty L. “Bicultural Conflicts in Chinese Immigrant Children.” Journal of Comparative Family Studies. Ithaka. 1985. Web. 2 May 2014.
Family dynamics present interesting revelations, especially regarding the relationship between parents and children. While most families undoubtedly encounter dysfunction at some point throughout life, immigrant families seemingly experience such stress continually. A handful of short stories, including “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan, “Who’s irish” by Gish Jen, and “A Thousand Years of Good Prayers” by Yiyun Li, demonstrate how strained relations erupt in immigrant families. Familial tension noticeably arises because of the immigrant parents’ inability to fully adjust to the American way of life. Further, immigrant parents adhere to strict expectations in an attempt to uphold the family’s conservative heritage. Finally, immigrant parents typically
First generation immigrants can be people born in the U.S. or not, and their parents are immigrants. For the first generation, although they may be legal or not, they feel attacked and are always worried because of what could happen to their parents. This is one group of immigrants in the United States who have thrived, going on with their lives by completing a higher education than that of their parents and have careers. This is the general structure that has come because of immigration, the first generation started at the bottom of the occupational ladder, but their sons and daughters and their grandchildren invested in education, capitalized upon opportunities in the nations expanding economy, and moved rapidly into the middle class without much help from the government. Immigrants contribute more than you may think, even after ...
In order for an immigrant to survive in a new country they have to be able to adapt to a new community and expand their self concept. There is great plasticity in the self perception and identity of immigrant offspring. The memoir, The Woman Warrior, by Maxine Hong Kingston, does a good job in highlighting this statement. Her memoir shows the struggle of the older generation to adapt to American culture after migrating, it shows how the second generation contends with their dual identity, and how their unique perceptions emphasize the gap between the two generations.
People come to the United States from all over the world with a different culture and adapted to their own perceptions of living. However, even though we live in a diverse country it is still difficult for everyone to adapt because our ways are not the same as the country of others. It is the most difficult for children to accommodate into new environments during development and as immigrant parents there isn’t much they could do either to help because they have to learn of the new ways themselves. There are some in some cases where you would rarely see a girl
...experiences with new immigrants influenced the theories developed by academic in the fields of education, sociology, and social psychology.” (Lissak 7)
Many Immigrant families have obstacles/challenges to confront as soon as they step into this Country. Not only the Illegal parent’s with the
Immigration is a complex process that results in a transformation of identity. Depending on contextual, individual, and societal differences this transformation can have either positive or detrimental results. Initially, the immigrant will be faced with an intense culture shock while settling into a new country. During this time, cognitive functioning becomes increasingly jumbled amidst the new context, resulting in immense identity confusion. This process of acculturation involves two specific issues regarding identity for each individual. These two issues include the delicate balance between remaining ethnically distinct by retaining their cultural identity and the desire to maintain positive relations with the new society. A variety of risk factors can contribute to the success or failure at effectively acculturating. Thus, those that directly experience more risk factors experience an even more delicate and complex transition often resulting in high levels of stress, confusion, social anxiety, and declined mental health.
Assimilation, different from accommodation, implied that the “outsider” group actually came to accept and internalise the values and culture of the native group which usually shows up at second generation of immigrants. They grow up with two different cultures and they will have to face the difference between these cultures and form their own opinion and tendency which may eventually coming out a behavior stander of the combination of two cultures. People in this period will have more individual understanding because they have chance to choose they life they want to live. It also means this period is not only the most important time for assimilation but also the most struggling time. Just as what Eric’s mentioned in “Notes of a Native Speaker”, “Being an ABC certainly affected me another way. It made me feel like something of a greenhorn, a social immigrant”. Most offsprings of immigrants will have the same confusion because they get their early education from their parents, but after experiencing social contacts(generally after they go to school), a new sense of value from the society will refresh their brains. Some people says that these kids are blessed because they have chance to aware two cultures and get benefits from both, but some would say they are cursed to live in a life like this because they have to face so many confusions in a young age. What
In both When Mr.Pirzada Came to Dine, by Thumpa Lahiri, and The Rules of the Game, by Amy Tan, children of immigrant families struggle to place themselves in a culture very different from their parents’. In both stories, struggle to find a balance between the American culture they are growing up in, and the foreign culture their parents what them to embody. This can be seen in The Rules of the Game by the narrator's questioning of Chinese culture in some places, but adherence to it in other. This same phenomenon can be seen in Mr.Pirzada when the narrator does the same thing. It can be seen from the stories, that first generation immigrant children tend to struggle to find a common ground between the influences of their original culture and their new one.
The idea of upward mobility plays a crucial role in migrants’ lives. Not only does a new life in America deal with the educational aspect, but newcomers must also face social issues. Depending on where one may come from, immigrant families must deal with how the “U.S government, American population, and the local labor force” look at them (Hao, Pong, 2008, pg. 63). The region of where people originate, can critically affect their social abilities once they come to America. Some U.S. institutions and individuals may have some kind of hostility towards a country from where immigrants come from. The outcome of hostility can lead to numerous consequences: unemployment, peer rejection at school or work and rejection of financial help from the government. These repudiations from American society have led to “immigrants’ children [becoming] vulnerable to downward assimilation through the influence of inner-...
..., she goes through that hardship of struggling between “pleasing [her] parents and being true to [herself].” Children of immigrants are expected to adapt to the American life yet they still need to keep their parents’ culture. Also, they are expected to become a professional in a career path that they are unhappy in. Furthermore, their parents’ are involved in their love life. Parents need to embrace their children’s decisions. But why is it that children of immigrants feel so pressure? They feel in debt because all of the sacrifices their parents made for them. However, that does not necessarily mean that parents should make all their decisions for their children. Guidance and support is necessary, but if the children do not have passion, they are less likely to live a happy lifestyle. Children are capable of deciding for themselves as they grow older and older.
Will and in this essay the author challenges the citizenship status of children born to illegal immigrants. Will argues that the 14th Amendment, which grants citizenship to any person born in the United States, is being misinterpreted. He explains how this misinterpretation leads to the actual act of illegal immigration. For example, by essentially rewarding the children of illegal immigrants with an American citizenship Will demonstrates how this provides an incentive for illegal immigration. The author makes clear the idea that when the 14th Amendment was written in 1866 it could not have included illegal immigrants since that concept did not exist at that time. He continues by using Indians as an example of people not included in the 14th Amendment since Indians and their children owed allegiance to their tribes. Finally, the author uses a decision by the Supreme Court in 1884 that declared both person and country must consent to the citizenship; therefore, if the source is illegal then the child should not be considered a