Acculturation and Family Struggles for Immigrants

  Last week I talked about dynamics within the family and the prevailing theories surrounding them and other human interactions. This week I will talk about some specifics situations where these established relationships can begin to change. The situation I'm going to be focusing on is acculturation of families due to immigration. For those of you who may not know acculturation means according to the Miriam Webster Dictionary Application "cultural modification of an individual, group, or people by adapting to or borrowing traits from another culture." 

Acculturation can have a serious effects on a family. According to the DHS report on only illegal immigrant population  there was an estimated 11.4 million illegal immigrants. These are 11.4 million people trying to adjust and adapt to a new culture and life style that differs from their own. It can be a largely stressful scenario. Many of these people may even be families, though that made clear in the report. Can you imagine how difficult it would be to adjust to an entirely new culture with a different way of thinking and acting? This report is only on illegal immigrants; can you imagine including the amount of immigrants who immigrated legally? In the reading called, "The Costs of Getting Ahead: Mexican Family System Changes After Immigration" by Martica L. Bacallao and Paul R. Smokowski; they cite another article saying, "Normative conflicts between parents and adolescents can be exacerbated by acculturation stress, creating intercultural as well as intergenerational difficulties between family members." 

Speaking from experience as an immigrant who immigrated early in life; I learned a lot through this study on conflicts due to acculturation stress. My mother and I immigrated when I was about 4 years old to the United States. Acculturation was very difficult for my Mom I remember most times she was stressed and felt lonely because she only had my dad who is a white American to lean on. I don't mean to be pointed towards race when I say this I only mean to emphasize the difference in culture. On an even more personal note I came to America accustomed to living in the Philippines. Many things about the Philippines were different to be more specific the concept of Familism. 

Familism according to "The Costs of Getting Ahead: Mexican Family System Changes After Immigration" by Martica L. Bacallao and Paul R. Smokowski, "involves a deeply ingrained sense of the individual being inextricably rooted in the family. The term encompasses attitudes, behavior, and family structures within an extended family system." Growing up I spent most of my time as a toddler surrounded by a village full of people I was related to. When I left, things were hard. I could only conversate with adults who knew my language and because of communication barriers I became impatient and prone to conflict and violence when I was younger. This put me in conflict with my parents for quite a while. 

We see how acculturation can be quite a struggle for families moving to new countries or even just parts of their country with a different way of thinking. I lived in the southeastern United States for two years and realized quickly that people's thinking was quite different from being in the Pacific Northwest. Adjustments are hard and I want know what I can do to prevent things like this from happening. My for those of us who might be in a similar situation is; how can we recognize and resolve conflicts that could arise in our families that might be due to acculturation stress?

Personally I believe being informed on the subject can really help us identify when we might be feeling acculturation stress and also when our family members might be feeling the same. To resolve a problem we first have to identify the problem. Strengthening our family relationships is also important. Find excuses to spend time with each other regularly. I hope we can all come up with more ideas to help ourselves if we ever face situations like this.

Sources:

Baker, Bryan. “Estimates of the Unauthorized Immigrant Population ...” Estimates of the Unauthorized Immigrant Population Residing in the United States: January 2015–January 2018, Jan. 2021, https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/immigration-statistics/Pop_Estimate/UnauthImmigrant/unauthorized_immigrant_population_estimates_2015_-_2018.pdf.

Bacallao, L. Martica, Smokowski, R. Paul.  "The Costs of Getting Ahead: Mexican Family System Changes After Immigration" Jan. 2007

Family Dynamics At Play

Families come in all shapes and sizes they also have their own dynamics and functions. I like to think every family is unique each family has their own way of doings and handling their children. However, this doesn't mean we can't learn from the examples of these families. In the book Marriage and Family in America: Needs, Myths, and Dreams, they outline a few theories that can be seen when observing families. 

Three specific theories that stuck were:

Exchange Theory: This theory supports the idea that cost should not exceed reward. Robert and Jeanette Lauer describe this saying, "Exchange Theory Posits a rational assessment of a situation. The individual weighs the pros and cons, the costs and rewards, of a situation." This week while doing some personal shopping I actually came across a couple that was doing just this. At first glance the couple was standing in front of the Nintendo section in Walmart and they seemed to be in a heated debate over whether to get something or not. The exchange went back and forth for a few minutes and ultimately I didn't see how it ended, but, it was clear this was a "serious" decision that warranted the discussion of pros and cons. Though the conversation was heated there was still discussion and not one member of the couple demanding control which leads me to the next theory. 

Conflict Theory: This theory is the idea that all societies are defined by conflict and inequality due to insufficient resources. While out shopping I saw examples of this quite often. I noticed a child asking for a toy in the children's section of the store and the parent telling them no. The resulting cries from the child were very apparent leaving no one to doubt that the parent and child were in conflict. I feel like conflict theory was what I observed most commonly when I was out and about shopping. Couples would argue about things not being in the budget and children would be complaining about not getting something they wanted. I was definitely one of the complaining children at one point in my life. Conflict Theory is definitely something I am accustomed to. The real question, however is how does something like Exchange Theory and Conflict Theory affect us as individuals? How will it affect the upbringing of our children and/or future children? The third theory I am going to discuss asks these same questions.

Symbolic Interaction Theory: This theory views humans as creatures who are shaped and influenced by interaction experiences. I saved this theory for last because the previous two theories worked around the interaction experience itself in a way that those two theories defined an individuals behavior. Symbolic Interaction Theory, however views the interaction experience as a whole is what influences individuals. To quote Marriage and Families in America again, "...what happens in interaction is a result not merely of what individuals bring to it, but also of the interaction itself." 

I knew a few people who thrived on conflict and would try to start an argument just to get a rise out of someone. One individual in particular would laugh as he saw someone get frustrated. I won't name anyone here to avoid conflict. This individual explained that they and their siblings would often get into conflict and that was how they bonded. Personally I wasn't a fan. In contrast I was out shopping and I saw a father rolling his daughter around in a cart. The daughter was no more than four or five years old and she was talking to her father at what sounded anything and everything. Her father was attentive and asked questions treating her like an equal in the conversation. The girl was well behaved in the store and was open with her father. I was honestly impressed for the brief moment of the conversation that I heard. 

In these two examples we have to different interaction experiences and two different outcomes. Personally I am more inclined to support Symbolic Interaction Theory. It makes one come to realize the effect we can have on others especially our families.

I'd invite everyone to take that to heart and think about the way you interact with your families or how you plan to interact with a family you may have in the future. Interactions have power and luckily enough if we are conscious of that the power will be in our hands and we can affect the outcome.  

Why Aren't People Having Kids!?

In recent years fertility rates have dropped in the United States. In 2018 according to the CDC the fertility rate was at 1.728 and in 2019 it dropped to 1.705. For the U.S. to effectively replace their population, the fertility rate would need to 2.1 which is the equivalent of 2100 birth per 1000 women. In contrast, the current numbers are lower by a wide margin. The United States isn't the only country struggling with this as well. It has become an issue throughout the world. 

Why would you think this is important? Lois M. Collins from Deseret News uses Demographics Intelligence Chief Lyman Stone as her main source in her article "Declines in America's Fertility Rate May be Stabilizing. Is There Hope for a Reversal?" She quotes stone saying, "The entire economy is an intergenerational transfer good luck selling your house if there's no one there to buy it." An intergenerational transfer in laymen's terms is a transfer of anything from one generation to another. This means without a new generation to take the reins, it is impossible to an economy to maintain itself. From an economic point of view people are the greatest resource. Ms. Collins also says, "Among social reasons, economic research shows less population growth leads to less innovation and entrepreneurship, smaller rates of per capita economic growth and problems with intergenerational transfers, from stock market to Social Security and home sales." The part that sticks out to me the most is "less innovation", with less births we miss opportunities to produce great thinkers and innovators leaving society to just collapse. In a video interview with the Wall Street Journal Elon Musk, a great innovator and entrepreneur in his own right says, "Population collapse is potentially the greatest risk to the future of civilization."

So this begs the question. Why don't people want kids?  Npr.org talks about declining birthrates in Germany even though they invest 260 billion dollars a year into 156 family-oriented projects. With this much money you'd think it would stand to reason more children would be born, but it had no effect. NPR explores this further identifying career as one of the possible reservations women may have about child-baring. The cite the Institute for Higher Education Information Systems in Hanover who identified that 10 years of graduating college women with children were making far less money than their childless female co-workers. A Harvard study posted on "gap.hks.harvard.edu/" explored this issue as well in the United States and as an example of one of their findings on this issue they state that Mothers were 6 times less likely than childless women to be recommended for a job and if they were their recommended starting salary was around 7.9% less than a childless woman.  Going back to NPR they quote the German Minister of Labor, Ursula von der Leyen's experience when having her first child. She says, "All my colleagues at the hospital where I worked were disappointed that I was pregnant because they thought that I would never ever come back," she recalls. "But when I did return, they were disappointed in me and questioned whether I would be a good mom. It was awful." 

This kind of culture can definitely be detrimental to women who are considering starting a family. How would you feel knowing that if you had a child your chances for higher wages and even gaining employment would diminish? How would it feel to experience the same as Mrs. von der Leyen? With reservations like these it is almost not surprising why a woman wouldn't want to have children. However, as a consequence we face the inevitable collapse of society. 

So how do we resolve this? There are the obvious reasons like closing the wage gaps and looking at a woman for her qualifications to do a job and not using children as a consideration. Regardless of this though it is ultimately still the choice of the woman whether she wants to have children or not. I don't think adding pressure is going to help, but at least removing any obstacles that might cause reservations for the individual should be implemented and outwardly it seems like a few simple fixes. I'm sure there are more reasons as well and I've only really outlined a couple of possible issues. I hope anyone reading this will do more research on their own and expand their understanding. 

Sources:

Gochnour, Natalie. “Natalie Gochnour: What Utah's Historically Low Fertility Means for the State.” Deseret News, Deseret News, 6 Dec. 2018, https://www.deseret.com/2018/12/6/20660479/natalie-gochnour-what-utah-s-historically-low-fertility-means-for-the-state.

WSJDigitalNetwork. “'Tesla as the World's Biggest Robot Company:' Elon Musk on AI and U.S. Innovation | WSJ.” YouTube, YouTube, 6 Dec. 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSD_vpfikbE&ab_channel=WallStreetJournal.

Nicholson, Esme. “Germany's Paradox: Family-Friendly Benefits, but Few Kids.” NPR, NPR, 7 May 2013, https://www.npr.org/2013/05/07/180610371/germanys-paradox-family-friendly-benefits-but-few-kids.

Correll, Shelley J., Stephen Benard, and In Paik. "Getting a Job: Is There a Motherhood Penalty? 1." American journal of sociology 112.5 (2007): 1297-1339.