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Cross-Culture Conflict and Adjustments Many different social and ethnic groups have migrated to America to start new lives. Certainly, each of these groups was unique and each group socialized differently. These people had to learn how to adjust to their new communities in the United States and learn how to socialize. The purpose of this essay is to evaluate the dynamics of socialization of immigrants that came from different communities all over the world, define problems immigrants face, compare cultural differences between the United States and other countries. This paper also explores difficulties, such as cultural adaptation, job opportunities, language and lifestyle immigrants face after moving to America. Competition for jobs and business opportunities would be very keen in the big eastern cities.
Some of the agency representatives pointed out these job options to immigrants who were reluctant to leave New York for other states. On a whole, the newcomers went willingly enough wherever they were assigned, largely because, with the exception of New York, one place in America was as strange to them as any other. The social conditions that immigrants face are outrageous. From living in a ghetto to prejudice acts against them, they have a great deal to endure. Many of immigrants probably lived in worse conditions in their home country, but their social status was high. Immigrants from the USSR can be a perfect example.
Many skilled workers such as doctors, scientists, engineers after moving to the United States had to live in the ghetto, while their social status back in the USSR was high. Because of poor hosing conditions, immigrants suffer from a number of health problems, some of them simply cannot afford heath insurance and many after moving to the USA simply do not know what is insurance, because in many countries medical care is free. For many immigrants it is frustrating to be in lower class in the United States compared to their home country. Many formerly professional women in the Soviet immigrant community recall months, and even years, when they cried each day on their way to jobs that offered little pay and even less satisfaction when compared to the professions they had trained for. (Halberstadt p. 244) Such dramatic loss of professional status, coupled with frustration over the inability to speak English and initial incompetence at such basic tasks as job hunting, shopping, and reading official mail, has caused severe emotional and psychological problems for many immigrants. According to Halberstadt, mental health clinics were seeing overwhelming numbers of middle-aged immigrants with debilitating symptoms of depression and anxiety. Many have also complained of poor health, the result of an overtaxed and under-supported Soviet health care system, and stress caused by emigration or loss of status. (p. 245) A growing number of immigrants from countries in turmoil enter the United States without documentation and request political asylum on arrival.
Some political refugees are from the same origin countries as refugees, such as Cuba. However, most are from countries experiencing current or recent civil wars. Because these persons request protection after entering the United States, not always they qualify for refugee assistance. However, according to the U.
S. policy, immigration law violators are not immigrants. (Weissinger) For such immigrants it is difficult to survive, moreover succeed, under such conditions. The rapid demographic change in the nature of immigration has created pressing demands for services associated with resettlement and adjustment problems. To accommodate these changes, traditional organizations have been pressured to redefine their role, and various new organizations have been established -- a perfect example is Chinatown.
Ethnic religious institutions have also played an important role in helping immigrants adjust to life in the United States. Although Chinese immigrants are mostly nonreligious, many initially affiliate with religious institutions for practical support and later are converted through intense participation, which helps immigrants to socialize. (Bouvier) Adolescents and young adults from immigrant families face socialization problems at home, stemming from the insistence of religious parents that everyone in the family continue to observe traditional customs. In some cultures, such as Pakistan or India parents arrange marriages for their children and weddings remain one of the central rituals in the life of the community. However, in American society the situation is different.
When a child resists such an arrangement, or insists on a greater degree of independence than immigrant parents are used to, conflicts arise. Moreover, in America, citizens have a right to be homosexual or bisexual either they want to live alone or marry. Each individual has control over his / her life, and decisions of children often do not match the perceptions and expectations of their parents. Battles between fathers and children have been especially intense, sometimes resulting in physical violence.
After an immigrant child reaches maturity in the USA, he / she leaves the family for college of for job and often decides to live separately from the family, which is stressful for parents, because they have to stay alone when they are old. Sometimes parents can be sent to the old home, which would never happen to them in their home country. In many countries (Muslim cultures) children stay with their parents before marriage and sometimes live together with their wives / husbands and parents in one home. The culture shock is a common problem among immigrants. Culture shock may be especially hard for immigrants from the former USSR.
They come expecting an idyllic society, having dismissed the negative American image of drugs, crime and homelessness as propaganda. But on arrival they stay in cheap Manhattan hotels, and some begin to wonder if they made the right decision. Transition between the old methods and those of the new country is a difficult process and takes time to complete. During the transition, there can be strong feelings of dissatisfaction. (Guanipa) Immigrants from the former USSR, accustomed to intense friendships with relative few people, tend to see Americans as superficial and materialistic.
In turn, they themselves may be perceived as aggressive, demanding and sometimes lazy. In moving from one country to another, newcomers have had to find a way to make a living, in addition to getting used to a different and unfamiliar culture and often a new language. The American dream also had its negative underside of reality, bringing rewards with one hand but demanding sacrifices with the other. For immigrants, the price of prosperity was often the loosening of their connections with their heritage and traditions. Back at home, immigrants lived in community. Every family new their neighbors, helped neighbors, invited them for a dinner, while in the United States people often do not know who their neighbor is.
Such a situation is stressful for immigrants, who often feel lonely living among strangers. Racism is a huge problem that immigrants face. Anti-immigrant racism has become a critical tool in the growth of far right movements around the world as well. (CPUSA Online) For example, Jamaican immigrants ethnic identity in the United States develops within the context of a society that is highly racialize d. Jamaican ethnic identity develops in response to American society's racialization, as they attempt to distance themselves from unflattering assumptions about blacks. In reaction to racism, ethnic identity becomes an alternative avenue of self-definition. The problem is that Jamaicans can only partially extract themselves from American society's generalized negative view of blacks. (Prescod-Roberts) Even Jamaicans who have lived in the United States for many years have trouble coming to terms with the fact that their skin color has such a negative impact on their daily lives and aspirations.
Race, in Jamaica, is not a publicly debated issue; in the United States, race is a public and pressing question. Blacks are a minority group in the United States, whereas Jamaicans define blackness loosely, Americans adhere to a much stricter definition. Perhaps most problematic is that while Jamaicans do not associate race with achievement, Americans tend to view blacks as low achievers. This is particularly painful because the idea that Jamaicans are achievers lies at the core of their ethnic identity in this country. Immigrants face uncertain relationship to established racial and ethnic hierarchies and to the related distribution of political space. A main issue is whether immigrants will become ethnics or racial minorities.
West Indians had long been disproportionately active as leaders of New York Citys black community but had done so never as ethnics or West Indian immigrants but rather as blacks; race was the prime organizing principle. This changed, at least for a time (and in the absence of major racial issues like police shootings), during the Koch administration (Ed Koch, Mayor of New York City 1978 to 1989), when Democratic leaders reached out to West Indians as ethnic leaders, making appeals on immigrant and ethnic grounds in an effort to gain black support in the face of growing African American disapproval of Koch. Immigrants not only come here as aliens to this country, but they also endure treacherous living quarters, rise above religious and ethnic prejudice, adapt to unfair social conditions, and customize and take advantage of economic opportunities. Majority of immigrants through hard work and patience rose above all negative barriers that tried to defeat them. Today there are many successful first generation immigrants, who moved to the United Stated even in their 30 - 40 s, some became even millionaires.
This fact suggests that these people have successfully adapted to American culture, overcame language barrier and pursued their American dream. Despite the racial discrimination, problems with socialization, language problems majority of immigrants succeed in the United States. Bibliography: CPUSA Online - Working Class Strategy in the Era of Capitalist Globalization. Communist Party USA.
web Guanipa, Carmen. Culture Shock, web Weissinger, George. The Illegal Alien Problem: Enforcing the Immigration Laws. Immigration Information and Software.
web Bouvier L. F. , and R. N. Gardner. 1986 Immigration to the United States: The unfinished story. Population Bulletin, 41 (4), pp. 3 - 50.
Halberstadt, Anna. 1996. A Model Assessment of an Emigrant Family from the Former Soviet Union. Journal of Jewish Communal Service (Summer): pp. 24455. (No direct quotes, the source used for general information on the topic) Prescod-Roberts, Margaret. 1980. Bringing It All Back Home. In Margaret Prescod-Roberts and Norma Steele, eds. , Black Women: Bringing It All Back Home, pp. 1340.
Bristol, U. K. : Falling Wall Press. (No direct quotes, the source used for general information on the topic)
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Research essay sample on Ethnic Identity Culture Shock
