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Surviving in a Culture Different from the
Culture of Origin: An Educational Model
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By Dr. Amin Azimi
Oct.-Dec. 1999
Lemar-Aftaab
The number of people in today's world who have left their native
country and moved to a completely different environment is larger than ever before in human history. The migration of earlier centuries involved far smaller numbers of people than the present migration waves. The reasons for current migrations are wars and other political upheavals, as well as poverty in one's place of origin versus presumed riches in another. The effect in all cases is that people and entire families are moved into environments vastly different from the ones in which they were mentally programmed, and often without any preparation.
In most of these cases, people move from a collective (i.e. eastern) to a more individualist (i.e. western) society. Wherever they immigrate as a family, they try to maintain their values from the culture of origin
inside the family. The immigrant family tries to protect itself
against contamination by the individualist environment. However, under the pressure of accommodating to the new situation, and because of the pain of what was left behind, many immigrants are forced to abandon some of their ethnic heritage, thus losing part of their identity. The effects of being cut off from the past may be all the more powerful for being hidden. The more the families repress their past, the more they will be vulnerable in the present. How the family adjusts to the new culture depends a great deal on whether one family member migrated alone or whether a large portion of the family, community, or nation came together.
Families who migrate alone have a greater need to adapt to the new
situation, and their losses are often more hidden. Furthermore, whether or not a family lives in an ethnic neighborhood will influence the impact of the family's cultural heritage on their lives. The East and West coasts, which tend to be the points of entry for most immigrants, are likely to have greater ethnic diversity and ethnic neighborhoods, and people in these areas are more often aware of ethnic differences. The ethnic neighborhood provides a temporary cushion against the stresses of migration that usually surface in the next generation. Those immigrant families who moved to an area where the population was relatively stable, and have less exposure to foreign cultures, generally have more trouble adjusting, and they experience more pressure to assimilate rapidly.
Immigrant families in their new environment experience standard dilemmas at work, in shops, and public offices, and usually also at school. Immigrants interact with locals and are reprogrammed to local values. At home, they try to maintain the values and relationship patterns from the country of origin. They are marginal people between two worlds, and they alternate daily between one and the other.
Basic to surviving in a culture different from the culture of origin
is understanding first one's own cultural values, and then the cultural
values of others with whom one has to cooperate. Parents have more
influence on creating multi-cultural understanding in children than in any other role. Values are mainly acquired during the first ten years of a child's life. They are absorbed by observation and imitation of adults and older children, rather than by indoctrination. The way parents live their own culture provides the child with its cultural identity. The way
parents talk about and behave toward individuals and groups from other cultures determine the degree to which the child's mind will be opened or closed for cross-cultural understanding. A sense of identity provides the feeling of security from which the child can encounter other cultures with an open mind. The principle of surviving in a different culture is that one need not think, feel, and act in the same way as the natives do in order to agree on practical issues, and to cooperate.
As a point of reference, an initial step towards developing
respect for cultural differences is to look for situations from your own
life in which you would behave like a person from another culture. You
can learn to appreciate and respect behaviors and values different from your own. Thinking about situations in your own life may help you understand that behaviors that seemingly differ are different only in terms of the type of situation in which you observe them, not in terms of their function. This will prevent you from prematurely valuing a behavior as negative and, more importantly, help you understand what the other person is actually trying to do. Respect is most effectively developed once you realize that most cultural differences are in yourself, even if you have not yet recognized them. For example, you may think that certain ethnic groups are cold and distant. You never know what they are feeling or thinking. But, do you allow yourself to think about why you are warm and hospitable? In fact, the main cultural differences among nations lie in values, not just observable behavior. Once you understand the meaning of others' values, you will have a better grasp of their behavior.
Awareness and respect are necessary steps towards developing trans-cultural competence. Once you are aware of your own cultural predispositions, and can respect and understand that those of another culture are legitimately different, then it becomes possible to reconcile differences. Why do you have to reconcile? Because you need to live in harmony in the host culture, otherwise the impacts of culture shock will continue to make interferences in your life. Culture shock can cause intense discomfort, irritability, bitterness, resentment, homesickness, and depression. In some cases distinct physical symptoms of psychosomatic illness can occur.
The process of cultural integration, and understanding other
cultures depends on your ability to recognize that you carry a particular value system because of the way you were brought up, and that others brought up in a different culture have a different value system, for good reasons. Without awareness, you may live in a new society feeling superior and remaining deaf and blind to all clues of your own mental programming.
For example: Assume a situation in which you and your identical twin were separated at birth from your biological parents who were living in a small village in India. You were adopted by a Moslem family in Afghanistan, and your twin was adopted in Japan by a Japanese family. Now you are in your twenties and for the first time have learned that you are adopted and have a twin. You search for your twin and finally find him in Japan. He looks just like you, but his mannerisms, behavior, attitude, values, and even his religious beliefs are vastly different from yours. For the first time it dawns on you that you could have been a different person in terms of values, believes, religion and overall identity if you were adopted in Japan instead of your twin.
If you have to interact with other cultures, you have to learn about these cultures. You should learn about their symbols, their heroes,
and their rituals; while you may never share their values, you may at
least obtain an intellectual grasp of where their values differ from
yours. You have to recognize and apply the symbols of the other
cultures, recognize their heroes, and participate in their rituals, and
experience the satisfaction of getting along in the new environment, while being able to resolve first the simpler and later on, some of the more complicated problems of life among other cultures without changing your own fundamental value system.
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About the Author:
Dr. Amin Azimi
Other work by Dr. Amin Azimi:
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Copyright © 1999 Aftaabzad Publications. All Rights Reserved.
May not be duplicated or distributed in any form without permission.
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