Acculturation & The International Visitors Leadership Program
Acculturation noun ac·cul·tur·a·tion \ə-ˌkəl-chə-ˈrā-shən, a-
Acculturation is one of the services IMANI employs to solve the major issues impacting today’s refugee and immigrant population. The failure to take into account the consequences of acculturation can contribute to other problems for individuals, families and communities.
Acculturation is defined as cultural modification of an individual, group, or people by adapting to or borrowing traits from another culture; or : a merging of cultures as a result of prolonged contact. Acculturation is also the process by which a human being acquires the culture of a particular society from infancy.
IMANI offers ESL classes, budgeting, and lifestyle and parenting classes to help with the process of acculturation.
The process of cultural and psychological changes that are experienced when someone moves to a new area can be overwhelming. We provide services to families and individuals to help adjust to their new surroundings by immersing those into the new culture while not losing their own culture in the process. These goals are accomplished by immersion into community activities through:
- Learning and understanding the new language.
- Understanding of the laws, customs and traditions of the new area.
- Understanding acceptable and unacceptable behaviors.
Refugee children and families experience many or all of the following stressors as they try to navigate between their new culture and their culture of origin:
- Conflicts between children and parents over new and old cultural values
- Conflicts with peers related to cultural misunderstandings
- The necessity to translate for family members who are not fluent in English
- Problems trying to fit in at school, place of work, hospitals, social service agencies, etc.
- Struggle to form an integrated identity including elements of their new culture and their culture of origin.