ACCULTURATION - SAGE Publications Inc

1 99C H A P T E R 4 ACCULTURATIONV ignette: Callme Je ssie, no t Jos efina! DefiningAcculturationEarlyDefinitionsAcc ulturation,Assimilation,andSegmentedAssi milationModelsofAcculturationEthnogenesi sEmphasis on theInd ividualThe Roleof SocialCo ntextBiculturalismEnculturationGeneratio nalDifferencesandAcculturationAcculturat iveStressAc cultura tiveStressandReasonforMigrationMeasuring AcculturationLevelsofAcculturationChapte r Su mmaryKey TermsLearningby DoingSuggestedFurther Rea ding s C allme Jessie, not Josefina! Josefinawasbornin Chicago s heavilyLatino Litt le Pil se n ne ighborhood. Carlosan d Maria,he rparents,leftPuertoRicoin theirearly20sandmetin Chicagowhileworking at a fa ctory. Carlosan dMar ia missth e is lan d and theirrelativesandPu ert o rtunately, LittlePilsenhada goo dnumberof ma rketsthatso ld all thefo od sta pl es th at Carlosan d Mariamissedincludingpl antains(Continued)VVIIGGNNEETTTTEEA ccul turation is, arguably, one of the most frequently mentioned con-structs or concepts in ethnic psychology.

2 Indeed, researchers often includesome measure of ACCULTURATION in their research to analyze differen ces withinethnic groups and to understand the relationship of ACCULTURATION to psy-ch osocial adjustment and health. It is not unusual therefore to read in the psy-ch ological literature how ACCULTURATION is related to a perso n s level ofadaptabil ity to new social situations or to depression, cigarette smoking, oralcohol use. Likewise, ACCULTURATION has be en associated with phenomena asvaried as i ntergenerational family conflict, academic performance, and utiliza-tion of mental health services. This chapter examines ACCULTURATION and the100 THEPSYCHOLOGYOFETHNICGROUPSINTHEUNITEDST ATES(Continued)and gandules. Carlos often expresses concern fo r how his ki ds are not as respectful and courteous ashe had been as a teen and blames the American culture for having spoiled his children.

3 He alwayssp eaks in Span ish to th em and he is often accuse d by the chil dre n of bei ng old-fashioned. Mariasp eaks English more fluently than her husband and feels perfectl y c omfortable a mong her Whitefriends as well as among her Lat ino nei ghbors. Josefi na is fully bilingual, having learned Spani sh a thome and English while attending school. She is as comfortable e ating rice with gandules as ahamburger at t he fast food outlet. She loves rock and rap music and is quite a t ease dancing be st friends duri ng high school included a non-Latino White boy (to whom she was Jessie ) andtw o Latinas (one from Puerto Rico and the other a Mex ica n American). As a junior in high school,Josefina met Robert , a White teen who shared many of Jo se fina s interests in the ar ts and i n often walked Jo sefina home from school and at times they would l isten to music in th e li vingro om within view of the kitchen where Maria prepared the evening meal.

4 In April, Robert askedJosefina to the juni or prom. She ran home and yelled at the door: Mami, g uess what? Robert askedme to the prom. From the back of the apar tment , Carlos s ho ute d back, Ti en es que llevar unchaper n[You hav e to bring a chaperone]. I ll die if you force me to do that . Nobody bri ngsch aperones, this is the United States. Papi, olv date de Puerto Rico, [Dad, forget Puer to Rico] re tortedJosefina. The discussions l asted many d ays, and in the end, Jo sefina did not go to the juni or prombecause her father ne ve r gave up on the idea of a cha perone. Jose fina s senior year in high school wasa stress ful one for the Martinez family. Jo se fina was intent on getting good grades and a good SATscore that would all ow her to get a scholars hi p to one of the private Catho lic un iv ersities in the NorthShore of Chicago (close enough t o the family home but yet far enough to justify st ayi ng in t heresidence halls).

5 She insisted on being addressed as Jessie rather than Josefina an d would on ly speakEnglish at home. She often smoked a cigarette before and after scho ol and spent long hours on th ephone speakin g in English to all her friends. When the time came for the seni or prom, Carlos againinsisted that a chaperone was require d bu t re lented after tal king with his neighbors who assured h imthat i n the United States it was appropriate for a girl to go to a dance without a construct of biculturalism, their definitions as well as issues related totheir measurement and their effects on people s growin g attention to ACCULTURATION in the psycholo gical literature,the life of this construct or c oncept has experienced a history of benignneglect. Sinc e the beginnings of the 20th century, a se lect group of so cialscientists, primarily anthropologists and sociologists, has been advocating fo rmore studies of ACCULTURATION .

6 These early social scientists initially definedacculturationas a process of change that occurs when indiv id uals fromdif ferent cultures interact and shar e a common g eographical space followingmigration, political conquest, or forced turation has such theoretical and practi ca l significance in e thnicps ychology that much of the rest of this book will refer to i ts influence in thesame fashion as culture and ethnicity. Indeed, much of the beh av ior ofCarlos, Maria, and Josefina as described in the story that begins this chapterreflects differences in their levels of ACCULTURATION . As is often found amongfirst generation individuals who show low levels of ACCULTURATION , Carlosstruggles to maintain not only the language o f his country of origin, b ut alsoit s cultural practices and values. Maria, on the other hand, also a firstgeneration individual, has learned English, has a number of friends who arenot Latinos, and feels comfortable i nteracting with people of d iv er se ethnicbackgrounds.

7 Josef ina, as a more acculturated second generation Latina,often finds herself in conflict with the traditional practices of her parents country of origin. While bilingual, she prefers to speak in E nglish; shechanges her name to Jessie, and considers some practices that werenormative in Puerto Rico to be old-fashioned although she enjoys i ts food,music, and other cultural of the early research on ACCULTURATION suffered severe conceptuallimitations including a simplistic assumption that ACCULTURATION inevitablyleads to a weakening of one s or igi nal cultural identity and practices. Thisassumpt ion reflects a unidirectionalmodel of acculturationin whichculture change is thought to occur in one direction people move awayfrom their culture of origin and towardthe dominant group duringresettlement in a new country. This unidirectional model of ACCULTURATION ,which is discussed in g reater detail below, was predominan t i n the UnitedStates at the beginning of t he 20th century and reflected such ideas as the melting pot pa radigm where newcomers were expected to mimic as muchas possible the members of the host or dominant assumption about the unidirectionality of the acculturat ion processhas been criticized by a number of researchers ( see Chun, Balls Organ ista, &Mar n, 2003) who prefer to think of ACCULTURATION as a more complexphenomenon that considers at least two cultural dimensions where, likeAcculturation 101Jo sefina, an indi vidual may re tain some aspects of the culture of origin and alsolearn and favor aspects of the new culture.

8 This more complex understan dingof accul turation is often perceived as promoting a society characterized b yindividuals who a re comfortable in various cultural settings, producing what isoften termed a cultural mosaic rather than a melting pot soup. Beforeanalyzing these diffe re nces in the way ACCULTURATION has been conceptualized,it is important to better define the ACCULTURATIONIn the simplest terms, accul turationcan b e defined as a cu lture learningprocess experienced by individuals who are exposed to a new culture or eth-nic group. While this process can occur among tourists an d i ndividuals whotravel briefly abroad, in this chapter we are concerned primarily with accul-turation as experienced by individuals who are exposed and le ar n a new cu l-ture over lengthier periods of such, we are interested in studying individuals who experience a newculture due to permanent or long-term r esettlement and relocation.

9 Forexample, when a large part of the southwestern United States was ceded byMexico after the war in the 1840s, the Mexicans who resided inwhat is now Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, and Californ ia wereexposed to the European American culture of the eastern United , the Mexicans had to undergo an imposed process of culturelearning. The European American newcomers also had to undergo a processof ACCULTURATION to the Mexican and Spanish culture of the residents in thearea. At a fairly superfi cial level, we could argue that this process of culturelearning forced the original residents (the Mexicans) to learn to speak Englishand eat hot dogs whi le the newly arrived (eastern . citizens) learned someSpanish and began to appreciate tacos and tortillas. As psychologists, we areinterested in understanding the extent of these changes in behavior as well astrying to determine how exposure to one culture affe cts the values, attitudes,and psychological well-being of the new and old residents of a given process of ACCULTURATION is not limited to individuals who are forcedto change their nationality because of political events such as the onesdescri bed above.

10 Immigrants and short- term foreign workers or guestworkers also experience the ACCULTURATION process as they change theirresidence and are exposed to a new culture. Forced relocation and enslave -ment, as happened with Afri cans to the United States and to other countrie s inthe Americas, also produce the process of culture learning that we callacculturation. Also important to remember is the fact that the r eceiving or102 THEPSYCHOLOGYOFETHNICGROUPSINTHEUNITEDST ATES host ethnic or cultural group undergoes the process of accultur ation as itsmembers are exposed to new ways o f t hi nking and acting. In that fashion, wecan talk about ACCULTURATION promoting the deve lopment of biculturalindividuals in na tions or cultures where two or more cultures come in contactwith each other and where their resid ents learn the attit udes, values, behavior,and other cultural aspects of the ethnic groups with whom they societies like the United States that have been created by thecontributions of immigrants from many places are enri ched by the presence ofmultiple cultures where divers e groups share their beliefs, values, attitudes,and ways of important is the fact that the process of ACCULTURATION can be a long-term phenomenon affecting various generations.