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About Seattle
Melody yoshinaga
Cultural
Joys & Pitfalls
(From the Newcomer’s own cultural perspective)
- Ethnic celebrations put on by ethnic associations and organizations
- Ability to speak native language with others who speak
- Organizations which preserve and perpetuate culture and hand
down to children
- New chance at life opportunity
- Ability to share own culture with others with shared experiences
- Opportunity to share culture and language with larger community
- Diverse population to share and learn about other cultures
- Ethnic group may be held into to specific ethnic enclaves
- Lack of understanding or misunderstanding of experiences of
Horn of Africa immigrants and refugees
- Lack of language accessibility in many places
Through reading, conversations, and interviews,
we have learned identity issues that newcomers from Horn of Africa
experience. The identity issues include gender, power, generations,
social status, and economic situations. Like Edger, Kerrie, Ann,
guest speakers mentioned, reversals and changes in family and
gender roles are seen in common and will be primary identity issues
that newcomers are to face and confront. Male have to take care
of house chores and kids. Especially for elders, this change in
gender role is not acceptable.
Male will witness female status/power being expanded
with opportunities of educations and employment. Male feel powerless
especially for those who had education and were professionals
like teacher/engineers/lawyers back home. Here in this new county,
they are not guaranteed to maintain the same social, economic
status that they had back home. They have to start their new lives
with blue color jobs a lot of times.
Another identity issue is change in roles between
parents and children. As children adapt to new environment quickly
and learn new language fast with more exposures to society, parents
need to depend on children due to language barriers and unfamiliarity
of new world.
When identity issues are discussed at political
and social levels, society categorizes people such as African
and Asian rather than Ethiopian, Eritrean, Somali etc whether
or not how people would like to identify themselves. People might
offend you about identity because of ignorance or some other reasons.
Impact Across Generations of Population
We discussed the fact that most migrant communities often experience
a growing gap between the older and younger generations. Much
of our experience has been in observing the gap between parents
and their children. The causes of this generation gap that we
discussed were:
Children attend school in the US and are speaking, reading, and
working in english all day, while the parents sometimes may not
be literate in their native language let alone english. Meanwhile,
the children may not be learning the native language, or only
speaking the language at home. The difference in language skills
can cause a gap between the generations and make it hard for parents
and children to communicate.
The US culture is very different from other cultures that people
may be migrating from. US culture has different expectations and
norms when contrasted to other cultures. This can be another cause
of the gap that grows between the generations: they were raised
in two different cultures.
Upon migration into the US often both parents are required to
get jobs. This often means that many duties that were assigned
to a certain gender now must be shared. This can cause some difficulty
when trying to communicate the need for these changes to the older
generations that may not understand the need for changing gender
roles.
As the younger generations of migrant communities grow up in
the US, because of their level of education they often have greater
opportunities in the US. This can apply to jobs, finance, and
travel opportunities. The older generations may not get these
opportunities. This can also be responsible for the gap between
generations.
As shared by both Melody and Kerri, some cultural joys and pitfalls
experienced by refugees and immigrants in Seattle perpetuate and
impact generations. We also discussed the risks and rewards of
living in Seattle.
- Possible isolation if there are no community centers or if
there are no visible community organizations.
- As mentioned by Melody, there is a possible lack of understanding
or misunderstanding of experiences of Horn of Africa immigrants
and refugees. Also, lack of language accessibility in many places
is also a possible risk.
- Immigrants and refugees with children/young adults may also
experience family role reversals where individuals with the
language skills (English) take the lead
- Feeling of community support may decrease (or the safety
net provided by members of the community, as experienced back
home, may disappear).
- Cultural shock-not being able to adopt mainstream American
culture and/or feeling of exclusion
- Employment practices are different that back home, one may
be required to begin from scratch. One's education and degrees
may not be valued as much as back home
- Cost of living is Seattle is rather high
- Diverse population
- Seattle being an "accepting" city-more inclusive
that other states
- Horn of Africa population is visible
- There are some grassroots organizations that help Horn of
Africa community members
We discussed the impact on family members here and back home.
Edgar and Kerri both mentioned role reversals and the shift in
family power dynamics when kids become interpreters and elders
feel a loss of respect on the part of the kids. Families and communities
might experience increased instances of domestic violnece due
to the stresses created by the new relationship dynamics.
I think a great example of the impact of migration
on family here and back home was Lette's description of going
home. Many family members become dependant on financial support
from family in the US. This can create stress and in some cases
resentment on the part of the provider who may feel family back
home do not realize or appreciate the many sacrifices on their
behalf.
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