Acculturation In Culture

A sudden change in one’s surroundings can result in culture shock. Culture shock refers to the anxiety and surprise a person feels when he or she is discontented with an unfamiliar setting. The majority of practices or customs are different from what a person is used to. One may experience withdrawal, homesickness, or a desire for old friends. For example, when a person goes to live in a different place with unfamiliar surroundings, they may experience culture shock. 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

Cultural shock is a common feeling a person experiences when transitioning into a completely different environment and living situation. Throughout the world, immigrants experience many difficulties when assimilating into a new culture.

There is a Mexican man that enters with the rest of his family. They eat beans, rice, flour tortillas and etc. The family does there every day routine, the dad wakes up at six- thirty to go to work in his truck. The children go to school and the mother stays at home. The things a person does in their all has a reason which goes all back to culture. Culture is what makes up everyone different from one another. Texts such as “What is Cultural Identity?”, “Where Worlds Collide” and “Two ways to Belong” supports that depending on one’s culture it effects one perspective on the world and others.

Culture shock is the feelings of alienation, hostility, heightened ethnocentrism, sense of loss, depression and/or self doubt that may result from immersion in a new culture.

Eckermann (2010), defines culture shock as segregation of two communities, creating conflict, inequality of rights, and inhuman treatment. Due to the divide, and Aboriginals being the minor group, they lost their identities and experienced tremendous stress and anxiety due to culture shock.

Pederson (7) explains that there are stages of culture shock, which he identifies as the honeymoon, negotiation, adjustment, and adaptation. In the honeymoon phase, a person is likely to get excited about being in a new place, meeting new people, tasting new foods, and acquiring new habits. However, as time passes by, they get into a phase of negotiation, where the differences between the culture one is used to and the one they find themselves in start to become apparent. Feelings of anxiety, anger, and frustrations start to take shape as unfavorable events perceived as strange come in the way of the person 's life, especially if a person does not feel accepted in the new culture (Mukherjee 273). Loneliness may set in, and the urge to go back to the familiar culture strongly comes into play. However, as time goes by, adjustment sets in, usually within six to twelve months, and one gets accustomed to the culture and also comes up with a routine. By this phase, one knows what is expected of them, and life once again becomes ‘normal.’

Mendez, Bauman and Guillory (2012) found that Mexican American students bullied Mexican immigrant students in a predominantly Hispanic high school. Mexican American students consistently bullied Mexican Immigrant students on language and feelings of superiority on behalf of the Mexican American students.

Latino/as represent approximately 12.5% of the U.S. population, making them largest ethnic minority in the United States today. As the years progress, psychologists are aware that the increase of Mexican American population will occur because of immigration and higher birth rates. Therefore, the needs for mental health services are evident simply because of the psychological stressors they face due to poverty, immigration, and acculturation. Although the need for metal health services is noticeable, researches suggest they underuse these services because of 3 in particular hypotheses. First, Mexican Americans have low incidences of mental health services. Second, there is a lack of institutional barriers such as: lack of Spanish speaking counselors, finances, and lack of ethnically similar counselors. Lastly, culturally barrier theory, otherwise known as acculturation and Mexican values.

What was the process of acculturation involved in becoming an African American? Many ethic groups and cultures were transported across the Atlantic without any of their belongings to serve as slaves; they were separated from their children, and lost their independence. The process of becoming an African American is based on the culture and history African Americans encounter. Slavery is where it all began within the African American population. Although, the African Americans could not bring their belonging with them that hold a sense of culture to their independence they still brought their style of language, cooking, music abilities, and religious beliefs that involved their culture to be passed down. “The text book states that African

Immigration is a subject that drives our society today. Whether politicians are debating the issue of immigration or whether a family is immigrating to a new country or place, we cannot escape the idea of immigration. At times our judgment over immigration is clouded due to the fact that our society gives immigrants and immigration a bad name. When one thinks of immigrants and immigration in our society we develop bad thoughts of the idea due to the stereotypes that our society has developed for us. However when we delve deeper into immigration and the challenges that new immigrants face we find that there is more to the issue than meets the eye. When immigrating to a new country or even a new area in your home country assimilation is a process

Peter L. Berger once said, “The sociologist routinely experiences culture shock in his own home.” The definition of cultural shock is when someone finds himself or herself in an environment that’s unfamiliar and someone doesn’t really know how to act or do. It is out of the person’s comfort zone and to try to fit and feel included in society, once must first face the uncertainty of how the unknown culture acts like. When the sociologist looks closely at these things, he finds unexpected motives, outcomes, things that might have not been realized. Therefore, culture shock can occur frequently every day due to the fact that everywhere in the world, including America has distinguishable outcomes that belong to other cultures.

Serg Gruzinski, author of Individualization and Acculturation…, discusses the history of sexuality in both the western world and indigenous society. We find that the Roman Catholic Church played a huge role in the sixteenth century to the eighteenth century which explains why we have the social norms we have today. Christian roles and expectations replaced Aztec traditional roles. For example, the Christian community encouraged a specific lifestyle when it came to marital relationships, that once married, family nor communities could no longer interfere in the marriage. Aztec society included close community ties where they had matchmakers, seek outside advice regarding family issues, etc.

Psychologists had studied the culture shock, and they discovered that it has four stages. Honeymoon, anxiety, adjustment, and acceptance. Frist, honeymoon phase begins when students are leaving home with all farewells from their family and friends. However, the students’ emotions are mixed up, they are sad for leaving their family, friends, and hometown or happy that they will begin a new adventure, see a country, people, and culture. It continues, honeymoon stage, after the students arrived at the U.S. feeling confused and tired, but happy. With everything around you is new, you will be excited to experience a plenty of new things, such as restaurants, parks, malls, cinemas, etc. That would be enough to make you happy for a while, and like most honeymoon periods, this stage eventually ends. The second stage is the anxiety, which is the most dangerous once. At this phase, the students will start to feel lonely and homesick because you are not yet used to the new surroundings and meet people who are often not familiar. Besides, missing your family, mother’s food, and studying a foreign language, all that will make you ask

Acculturation is known as a cultural change and psychological change that results following meeting between cultures at multiple levels in both interacting cultures. It has also been referred to the changes in personal values, beliefs, behaviours, and ways of living that an immigrant or minority individual makes as a result of adapting to the mainstream cultural or behavioural norms (Berry, Kim, Minde, & Mok, 1987). Acculturation often results in changes to culture, customs, and social institutions. In this modern era, through technology and media, people have been constantly engaging online to learn and understand new cultures, norms and languages. Acculturation is more than simply learning the English language, but also understanding the history of a new country, navigating its idioms and understanding the concepts behind its holidays.

Acculturation is the process of how a person or a group of people adapt into another culture by taking small pieces of that culture into their own culture. It is the idea of blend in with another culture, other than your own. For example, my family and relatives came to the United States for a little over 10 years now and some of the family members have assimilated into the American culture by beginning to celebrate the holidays, during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. Further, we are remaining embedded in the ethnic of being Hmong. Many of us decided to come to America to obtain a better lifestyle, and the America society has greatly impact our life to assimilate into the American culture.