In class last Monday, we discussed paradigms for understanding cultural adjustment to a new culture. The professor specifically laid out four, along a spectrum:
1. Assimilation (completely taking on the new culture and abandoning your own)
2. Accommodation without assimilation (adjusting to all aspects of the new culture necessary to positive interaction with it, while maintaining your own culture internally and in your own home, as well as in interactions with others from that same culture)
3. Ambivalence (mixed feelings about your identity, as it comprises an uncomfortable and uncertain mix of the two cultures)
4. Opposition/rejection (maintaining your culture of origin as a social or political statement against the new culture)
We discussed this specifically in the context of assessment - the formal exploration of the current reality experienced/faced by the consumer or community. The point in this context was, I believe, that when responding to people from outside the mainstream culture, it is important to understand which of these approaches they are taking as part of understanding their worldview. But what then? Do we simply note their perspective in passing, or do we have an ideal toward which we would like to move our clients?
American culture has sometimes held up one or the other of these positions as an ideal. Today, there are a wide variety of perspectives. For many Americans, assimilation is still the preference. We continue to hear rhetoric from some of our politicians and from many Americans about how immigrants are dangerously bringing new values into our country and failing to take on a fully American identity as they should.
Others feel strongly that every culture is precious and valuable, and that it enriches our country to have cultural enclaves within it, where we have slightly greater contact with immigrant cultures, and where they can feel at home. The third option, ambivalence, would probably not be the word chosen by any who hold an intermediate view between acculturation and opposition. Perhaps some might instead say that forming a new synthesis from two opposing thesis (cultures) would result in yet a stronger community. However, "ambivalence" does express the complexity and uncertainty often inherent in the experience of people trying to move between cultures.
Finally, mainly among those who feel unjustly treated by those in power, we have movements of outright opposition to our current system. These movements often idealize the cultures from which they came and use them to build a communal consensus against the "enemy" of mainstream culture/power. Some of these groups tried for decades or centuries to live peacefully in American culture, but continual discrimination, oppression and segregation eventually led to more definitive attempts at transformative political action, whether pacifist or violent.
Social workers at times have been the agents of mainstream culture in attempting to help immigrants assimilate or adjust as seamlessly as possible into our current reality. At other times, social workers have been voices for change and social reform, specifically because of the abuses against impoverished or underrepresented (often minority or immigrant) groups in out system. The social work code of ethics speaks always for letting clients/consumers decide for themselves what attitude they should take. However, that does not allow us, as social workers, to simply brush our hands of the dilemma. Consciously or unconsciously, our opinion will make a difference in our relationships, and it is important to be aware of these interactions within ourselves. Furthermore, we often DO try to influence our clients/consumers in one way or another
As therapists, we want to see our consumers become as healthy as possible, and that includes having a picture of what health looks like toward which we hope to move them. As advocates, it is unlikely we will be effective if we do not see the justice of our clients cause. As community organizers, we seek to move an entire community. As policy makers, we seek to influence the direction of an organization, state or nation. Inevitably, our opinion on this debate will influence our practice. The larger our sphere of influence, the more obvious this becomes.
So where do I stand? For a response to that, you will have to see the next blog.
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