To What Extent Migrating to the Us Impacted on Arab Identities - Essay Example

To What Extent Migrating To The US Impacted On Arab Identities? Introduction Migration is the process of movement from one place to another under certain pull or push factors in control. Historically, migration has extensively contributed to the prosperity in multiplicity of cultures and entailed ethnicities or even races in most of the developed countries. The process of migration creates impeccable impacts on the lives of the migrants including multiple stresses that can influence their mental conditions. The shift in terms of the environment creates establishment of new model or scenario that alters or facilitates the loss of the cultural norms, social support systems, religious customs and adjustment to a new cultures. This result in the ultimate variation and changes in identity concept person’s self. In most cases, the change in location or region –migration creates bereavement of the cultural identity. The scope of the question on which extent is migrating to the US impacted on Arab identities is divisible into several segments regarding eyesight on the impacts of American culture on Arab culture (Hermans & Kempen, 1988). These segments include religion, education, family, generosity and hospitality and work alterations. Culture refers to the quality inherent in a person or even a society which normally rises from the established norms and belief of the society which may entail manners, scholarly pursuits, letters, and arts. More, the culture is defined as the entailed characteristics of a scrupulous group of people which is normally described and defined by everything ranging from religion language, cuisine, music, arts and social habits. For instance, US is typically comprised of the immigrants and therefore the American is mostly defined by the largest group or the dominating group that comprises the largest portion of us. Identity refers to a set or collective grounds that define the characteristics of a thing (McCarus, 1994). In this case a thing refers to people. Culture and identity are integrated in the culture is normally acquired or learned from generation to another subsequent generation and entails value scheme or moral in the society (Herman and Kempen, 1988. Culture normally is intrinsic features that hugely glue people consistently as one in the community. Identity on contrary elucidates on the totality of a person’s self-perception and self-knowing. Identity and culture integrated with that they are usually inseparable in most cases. Both identity and culture avail recognition and belonging of people and are hence integrated widely (Hermans & Kempen, 1988). According to (McCarus, 1994), culture provides identity to a group of people, and thus identity is mainly constructed by the presence of the culture. Normally racial variation, ethnic and cultural difference amongst the people reveals part of true identity of people. Normally, the identity will modify with process of development at every personal level also including the social level (Herman and Kempen, 1988). This process happens in unison and alongside migration or the acculturation process. People develop culture through exposure to certain ambiance or environment. The global identity develops due to increased exposure to a certain wide range areas as, for instance, there have been increased levels of adoption of the American youth and adolescent’s culture. The culture came hugely to hamper the adolescents living in main urban center in Latin America, Asia and Europe (Suarez- Orozco, 2003). The pattern was highly influenced by the general adoption of new global media which includes movies, television, recordings, music, videos and the Internet. Other typical contributors to the inherent culture amongst youths and adolescents included the marketed brands like Coca Cola, Nikes and McDonald’s. The key aims of the essay are to elaborate on the main division of the Arab culture dilution in America (Hermans & Kempen, 1988). Impact of migration on cultural identity There is a great loss of the cultural identity under effects of migration. In most cases, the main psychosocial changes and alterations noted and experienced by most of the immigrants entail assimilation. Assimilation is the process by which cultural identity is lost while the various immigrant groups adapt to the prevailing conditions. It takes place when immigrant communities acclimatize to the mainstream or even host culture system and entailed value model of the system. The culture losses are notable in terms of social, economic and political basis ranging to religion, education and much other process undertaken in the community. Migration into host territory results in the loss of the original culture of the people. On other hands acculturation process is a process that may be intentional or even forced and also requires increased contact between ethnically and culturally divergent groups and segments of people. The actions results in incorporation and assimilation of established cultural values, language customs and beliefs by a minority group located in the majority society. While under acculturation process, the immigrant and entailed host may usually alter or change. Other nominal changes in persons include variations in attitudes, generational status, family values and attached social affiliations which repeatedly emanate in both the majority and entailed minority branches of culture. The case of Arab immigrants in the US Historical background about Arab immigrants According to (McCarus, 1994), the number of Arabs in US is subtle but recognizable. The current concentration of their numbers is a minority group. The group identifies personages from varying walks of life but historically they came from Lebanon, Palestine Assyria and currently all the citizenry are represented lot in the US. Large portion of the Arabs who came in around 188s was rejected or could not live as the economic, social or political factors connection in America and therefore considered themselves. Most of the people perceived themselves as mainly immigrants and did not even try to become Americans. They mainly geared for a search of the economic goal and eventually returning back to their land. At some point, there was the turn in events after there existed a perception that Anglo-Saxon conformity created a better and ideal goal. This is because it was anticipated that it would absorb people into it assimilating them thus creating a homogenous new form of race. The disillusionment came in when the newcomers were irresistibly rejected by the mainstream society. Following the war II the total assimilation of people into the mainstream society had begun, and there was a total absorption concept referred to as the acculturation. In this process, the minority took select factors of traits from the dominant culture and combined n with its typical culture models. In the process, a minority group retains its true identity. The same process was fostered by the government which continuously prepared a different syllabus for the foreign students thus enhancing diversity (McCarus, 1994). The second batch of immigrants consisted of people with sophisticated skills which were ready to settle down and have permanent living as citizens. The history of the Arabs in America dates to the generation of the slavery. Arabs constitute a section of the American minority population. The Arabs migration to America can be traced back historically to the times of slavery for Zamouri is considered the first Arab recorded in history to have gone to America. The Arabic group traces their origin from the Arab world which constitutes certain segment of the northern Africa and western Asia. The countries of origin of the Arabs are mainly twenty-two countries. Arab Americans have always been a fundamental ingredient of American society ever since its inception as it has always been there historically. The American Arabs population nearly reaches 4.2 million. This included those who dwells in various states or even small and entailed large cities. In this regard, some of them are highly concentrated in the metropolitan areas included San Francisco, Chicago, Detroit, Houston and many other sections. The first Arab-American was sold in slavery from morocco and transported to US (McCarus, 1994). Zammouri assumed the roles of a great healer, explorer, and an interpreter. According to historical statistics, Zamouri could have been captured around the year 1511 as a result of the Portugal invasion of the city which he came from. Zamouri comes out as the first Arab to go to America under slavery reason. Most of the captured slaves were allocated new names and could not trace their historical backgrounds due to a large distance they took while traveling to the desirable land. In the 1880 to 1920 there was a huge wave of immigrants entering into the US with the promise of better life (McCarus, 1994). Struggle for religious, political, cultural, and social identity According to (McCarus, 1994), there was a little struggle in Arabic culture versus the US in the religion section as most of the Arab immigrants were mainly Christians. The first Arab immigrants assimilated effortlessly into American culture acknowledging that most of them were from the Christian faith. They had Aside from hardly discernable and comprehensible Arabic names but besides were anglicized surnames with some even showing preference for the old World dishes and cuisines. They typically retained very few portions of their original ethnic roots, and many were flourishing, some even achieved celebrity status. Following the turning of the initial century, there was a first wave of the Arabs shifting due to the rule of ottoman in the Turkish rule. There was the four centuries old Arab acknowledgment and awareness in terms of the national entailed consciousness and was highly nascent. The second wave of migration presented a highly challenging group to be easily assimilated by the American culture. Having released from the colonial rule, most of the Arabs were highly united and active in political basis. They created school and structures that facilitated the retention of their culture in US. The new set of immigrants was mainly Muslims, who had intense Arabs and Muslims ideologies. The breakup of the Ottoman Empire typically released the Arabs from colonial rule thus creating the essence of the political awareness amongst the Arab communities. Most of the Arabic countries in the 1950s to 1960s had intense resonation of nationalist ideologies and therefore a huge number of the Arab countries and Arab world was packed with guarantee of hope. Back home amongst the Arabs, there was intense political movement in Palestine and also Arabs entire national unity. This resonated to the presence as the two of the burning and intense matter of the day (Hermans & Kempen, 1988). The second group of the Arab wave had critical ideological strategies. These ideologies overpoweringly influenced countless of them this wave or group of Arabs were assimilated into conventional society devoid of many struggles, but it retained its very distinctive features of its main ethnic past. The population consisting of majorly the Muslim population created a cultural distinction or cultural identity. The group constructed and established cultural clubs, Arabic language schools, and political committees. These aided the maintenance of the cultural identity or entailed political responsiveness among several new arrivals and the born children. The third section of the Arab immigrants into the US (1970s and 1980s) received poor reception on the host culture and society. The third group opted for seclusion instead of assimilation as they opted to seclude to the outskirts of American society. They still accepted new American cultural mores, but the group designed the new upsurge of the establishment of the Muslim schools, mosques, Arabic language classes and charities (Shibiny, 2005). Marginalization of Arab-Americans According to (McCarus, 1994), the marginalization of the Arabs emanated from an intense seclusion of the Arab community from the expected model normal assimilation. In collective model, most Arab Americans had highly experienced intensive cultural marginalization as they tried intensively to retain their culture. Recurrently, the Arabs, middle easterners, and Muslims were highly vilified in the news section, most of the Hollywood media productions, political discourse and in most pulp novels. The Arab American instead chose to deal with their marginalization in varying ways. These included; rejecting or denying their ethnic and cultural identity; engaging conventional society by information campaigns intended for the media and moving back into an ethnic enclave. Some of the Arabians indicated intense rejection of the US model in the forms of how using of the news media, politicians, book publishers and schools. The main themes of the entailed campaigns were highly centered on the intrinsic unfairness and entailed pitfalls. They felt intense stereotyping mechanism on Arabs was not normal, Middle Easterners and Muslims. In a responsive model, the TNT cable television network indicated their stop to airing of the movies that showed blatant bash on the Arabs and Arab Americans situations. There is a group of Arab Americans who reject their cultural and ethnic backgrounds a group that entails recent arrivals, native-born and assimilated immigrants (Gillespie, Cornish, Aveling & Zittoun, 2008). There is also another section of the American-born who undertakes great denial in the form of an absolute break from one person ethnicity in support of wholesale embracing of wider and domineering American culture (Shibiny, 2005). While other segmented groups intensively select to relate with certain selected distinctiveness in their culture entailing Arab and entailed Islamic culture. The similarity of this action is notable with wide comparison of the Iraqi Christians stressing normal their conventional regards for the Chaldean characteristics and identity but neglecting the Iraqi attachment. This created a scenario where groups of the Arabian origin chose to partly relate with their culture and neglect the other portions. According to the statistics, most of the Arab Americans who chose to withdraw from the ethnic enclave consistent highly of the recent immigrants. The range of the people from the unskilled people to eventual middles class professionals preferred to stay along the ethnic neighborhood or even close to each member of the similar groups mainly in urban settings (Gillespie, Cornish, Aveling & Zittoun, 2008). Consistent with (Lhamon, 2002), a group highly believe in the factual essence that their religion is strange to the American culture and therefore they highly reduce chances of assimilation. Cultural marginalization to them is the main price they pay for associating in the American society and for the people who select to undertake engagement on the societal acceptance of Arabs American as main forming part are exposed to cultural plurality. The society is divided into integrationists’ models or even other several strategies aimed at lining out the difference. The integrationists’ aims at stressing the main typical bond located between Arab or Islamic main values and the other American values. In the process, they emphasize highly on the available strong family ties available between each section of the society that hold up the Arab American and American culture. The group highly focuses on the main entrenched similarities and commonalities between Christianity and Islams religious stating the same background. Other section chooses counter the anti-Arab stereotyping methods and racism by highly stressing the naming of being Americans of the Arab ancestry (McCarus, 1994). According to Lhamon (2002), in combination well-assimilated or even native-born Arab Americans groups that also has foreign-born professionals who normally wish retain and maintain crucial ethnic individuality and identity but without the regards for the intense stigmatization. The principal issues currently facing the Arab American community is normally how to deal with the large and rising numbers of new immigrants into US who have not been oriented to the conventional seclusion in the American society. There is immense fear of the current political instability creating intense and conflicting backgrounds in the Arab nations (Hermans & Kempen, 1988). Immigrants assimilating or integrating into their new host culture According to (McCarus, 1994), immigrant gets assimilated into the new or host culture by adopting their way of life. The process of adoption takes into account accepting and practicing the daily chores undertaken by the host community in the daily process. The major sections for adoption entail sectors involving the faith and religion, political and social ranging of the people. Naturally people have recurrent issues regarding the lives. Religion is usually inseparable from people. The main typical issues affecting the daily lives of people are located on the distinct sectors of the entailed immigrant. The use of US English in America by the Arabs by all manners reflects intensive borrowing of a culture. The model of doing business also reflects the American culture. The same part of accepting Christianity would also reflect the adoption of the American culture. Culture is intensively intricate to the personal lives of the every person (Gillespie, Cornish, Aveling & Zittoun, 2008). In conclusion, the American culture impact on the Arab culture amongst the Arab Americans is extensive. Considering the various waves and groups that migrated to America the assimilation was quite swift amongst the fast groups that were mainly Christian Arabs. However, with transformations and passing on of time, the Arab American culture has resisted the assimilation by the American culture leading to marginalization of the Arab American in the region. The intensive disregards for the Arabs has been a line out in American systems, for instance, the use of the media to fight off the Arabians. The assimilation of Arab culture is strong, complex process since the third group of Arab migration into America set up structural mechanisms highly hinders the assimilation process. This would highly be used by the American culture to subdue Arab culture. In terms of range rating, the American has typically assimilated close to seventy percent of the Arab Americans. The domineering American culture has entailed threats in the use of application of tools. For instance, the use of media in combating strong war on the Arabian culture over a period thus creating fear amongst a certain group of Arabs who chose not to in the comprising situations. The effects of a strong American culture on the Arab culture are highly notable on the extents to which the various Arabs respond to the situations. Some Arab-American is free with the American culture and thus have rejected their culture ranging religion to other inherent parts of their culture. In contrary, some Arab American chose to lie extremely and live with the culture despite intensive stereotyping process on them. The impact of the American culture on the Arab culture is mainly notable in the typical methods of undertaking business and use of the English language. The Arabs have very keen to differentiate their religion and Christianity by building strong frameworks like mosques and madras that provides for Islamic upbringing of the Arab American. © 2014 Grammarly, Inc. 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