The book “Children of Immigrants” is a very comprehensive description of immigrants and their problems. I could totally relate to a lot of the problems. In fact for a moment I thought if this is my life story. The examples and ideas were not only related to me but also my immediate and extended family. The book focused mainly on Hispanic Population; a population that migrated as students in the 80s and 90s as well as a population that migrated as working professionals. Now there is a vast difference between people that migrated based on family relations and the one migrated for professional reasons or for achieving higher education.
I can see how a lot of immigrants come for the benefits of healthcare system and the advantages associated with it. I have also heard of cases where parents from India visiting their children didn’t purchase insurance and when they fell sick, the burden of paying for their care either fell on the children or the medical establishment.
Immigrants tend to have better health and they remain generally healthy. One would think that US has one of the highest standards of hygiene in the world. So why are the natives not healthier? My experience says that people of other developing countries don’t have such strict standards as far as hygiene goes. The immigrants are used to eating food that is not perfectly germ free. The immigrants have had some childhood diseases like mumps, measles and have developed immunity to those diseases. In the US infants are bombarded with all the immunizations and the children don’t get a chance to develop their immune systems. My personal experience says that when I visit India, I tend to fall sick unless I watch what I eat and drink.
Ethnic Identity Development and Multicultural Education: Ethnic identity is a slow process. It is imperative for one to identify with one’s ethnicity. It is also important to get rid of any negative feelings that come with ethnic identity. You are what you are; one shouldn’t feel ashamed of one’s identity and roots. Instead one should feel pride associated with one’s heritage and culture. If a person has had positive feelings or experiences with his/her ethnic identity then that person can derive strength in times of oppression or discrimination. I was intrigued by the comparison of “being” and “becoming”. It is something that I had never come across before. It is so natural for us to take the American norms as the way of life. It is similar to the old adage that “when in Rome you act like Roman”. When I was in India and even in my initial years in America I used to hear from my family the term “Americanized”. Obviously, my Indian family didn’t quite like the idea of me getting converted to an American way of life. After all, my culture is very different from the Western culture or at least it was when I first arrived. The Indian culture is no longer what it was like when I was growing up. India is in the midst of Westernization where some of the traditional values are fading. I think, people do want to preserve their culture but it does get diluted as time goes by. If we don’t make an attempt to preserve some cultural values, customs and traditions then it is bound to decay in due course of time. I am trying to pass on my language to my daughter and I am finding it quite challenging. She wants to be part of the main stream culture and sometimes expresses it blatantly. However, she does make an attempt which is encouraging. She has not completely given up and I will keep trying that she imbibes some of the culture that I grew up with. I truly appreciate the author’s idea of having multicultural education as the center piece of education and that it should be taught directly and deliberately.
I enjoyed reading Hollins’ article Relating Ethnic and Racial Identity Development to Teaching. I could relate to some of the traits that he explains. Ideally, I’d like to become a Type III teacher per his description. I see myself enjoying teaching even though I tend to get nervous and flustered - I can work on that. The article also emphasizes multicultural awareness and how significant it is in today’s diverse demography.
Yes, the Suarez-Orozcos are quite renown in the immigration field as one of the premier experts on Latino immigrants. They left Harvard before I got a chance to work with them.
ReplyDeleteAs for your reflection, as a mother I too am trying to figure out how much of Lao and Khmer culture that my son Logan learns because I am very much Americanized. More so than anyone else in my household at this point. But one aspect that has been relatively easy is to ensure that he is spoken to in Lao and Khmer by family members so he can communicate with his grandmothers and elders. That for me is one of the saddest part of acculturation when the language gets lost and the older and younger generation can't share stories with one another.
Thank you Prof. Uy for sharing your thoughts. The language that I spoke growing up in India, is already dying. I feel bad about this but India is going through its own phase of Westernization. When I visit India, people choose to speak in English. I almost wanted to ask out loud, "so...nobody speaks in Gujarati (my native language) anymore?" or "are we embarrassed about our own culture?" But in any case, my daughter goes to a school every Sunday morning to learn Gujarati and Indian Culture right here in Boston area. I try to speak to her in Gujarati, as much as I can. My husband dosn't speak this language but he supports my effort.
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