The Impact of the Intercultural Communication on the Migrants - Assignment Example

The person I am interviewing is called Johnston Mleva, an immigrant to the United s of America, and he is of African origin. This man came to the United States of America five years ago, and he is 65 years old. His country of origin is Kenya, and he comes from the tribe of Luhya, and within the Luhya community, he comes from the sub tribe of the Banyore (Gifford, 2009). Luhya is a tribe in Kenya under the Bantu category, and within it, there are sixteen sub tribes. The sub tribes within the Luhya community do not speak the same language and dialect. This is because they have different cultural background. The only similarity in terms of language is denoted by the root word “ntu”, which means a person (Shipton, 2010). This paper analyzes the results of the interview between me and Johnston Mleva. It focuses on the impact of the intercultural communication, and how my interviewee experienced it. This paper analyzes the cultural attributes of the Banyore people, and how they affected Johnston Mleva ability to communicate in United States of America. This is because he faced people of different cultures, and language background. On this basis, this paper takes a stand that an individual’s cultural background plays a role in influencing the effectiveness of an individual’s capability to communicate. For instance, United States of America consists of various cultural groups, and each group has their language. Communicating effectively amongst these groups requires the adoption of a common language. However, the cultural background in which an individual comes from, might affect the manner in which the same individual adopts the language. This paper analyzes how this is possible. Mr. Johnston Mleva has a great memory, and can remember events that took place in his life for over 45 years ago. As a child, Johnston remembers attending tradition musical celebrations, and bull fighting. It was part of the Banyore’s traditions to organize celebration parties in relation to appreciating their lives, and when there was a good harvest. Bull fighting was an annual event meant to celebrate the Banyore’s existence, and cultural heritage. During these celebrations, two bulls were charged for the purposes of ensuring that they engaged in a fight. This was a very dangerous event because these animals were fierce and on most occasions, at least a person died. During this period, because I was young, I learnt to appreciate my culture and its values. This is because the traditional music contained lyrics in praise of my language, long time heroes of my tribe, and specific aspects of his culture such as importance of marriage, importance of respect to elders and other members of the community, importance of free and honest association with strangers, relatives and any other relevant person in our lives. This aspect gave him skills to interact with members of other sub tribes amongst the Luhya because they came from a similar geographical location. On this note therefore, these tribes were interacting with each other for trade purposes, and marriage. The most vivid impression during his childhood is when Johnston Mleva his older brother married a woman from a different cultural group that he came from. The woman came from a Luo community. This community speaks the Luo language, and during the marriage ceremony, the bride’s father could not express himself in Kiswahili, the national language of his country of origin. On this note therefore, an interpreter was required because he had to give his speech as the bride’s father. This is a to inter-cultural communication because language is an important tool of expression. The lesson learnt is that to efficiently communicate across cultures, it is important to establish a common language that is widely understood by the different cultures under consideration (Kirwen, 2003). On this basis, Kiswahili language was used to bridge the communication gap between the bride’s father, and members of my community. This was through an interpreter. Johnston Mleva migrated into United State of America five years ago, and his country of origin is Kenya. This country is on the Eastern part of Africa, and is the biggest economy in East and Central Africa. The country is a democracy, with a devolved system of governance, and its leaders are elected after every five years. It has a great transportation infrastructure as compared to other countries in East Africa, with over 45% road network penetration, a rail system that serves the entire East African community, and four international airports. This is a great achievement for a third world country, whose economy is dependent on donor funding’s from States such as United States of America, and the European Union. In relation to its education system, the state has one of the complex systems in Africa, with 8 years of study at the primary level, 4 years at the Secondary Level, and 4 years at the University level. This system is referred to as the 8.4.4 system. The person himself is a University graduate, and during his time at the University level, he managed to interact with students of different cultures. In Kenya, there are two cultures that are most dominant, namely the Kikuyus and the Luo tribes, and they formed a large percentage of students at the University level, and they also occupy a larger percentage of jobs in the country. These two tribes speak the Kikuyu and the Luo languages. Communicating with these people was very difficult, and this is because most of the time they used their language to communicate with each other, without considering the presence of other people who were not of their tribe. Because of their dominant nature, they looked down upon the languages of the other tribes, and they developed negative attitudes towards people of other minor language groups. Because of this, developing an effective communication between him, a member of a minority tribe with his student colleagues was difficult. For instance, he remembers a time, during his first year of study; he tried to create a friendship between himself, and a senior student. He was unable to create the relationship because the student knew from which tribe he came from because of the accents of his speech. The student struggled to understand what my interviewee was saying because of the pronunciation of his words, and it led to the student making fun of him. This was a painful experience to my interviewee, and he sought to distance himself from anyone who made fun of him while speaking. On this note therefore, the heavy accent in his language was a barrier to his ability to communicate effectively, and efficiently. However, my interviewee denotes that in United States of America, situations are different. This is because of the different cultural backgrounds that people of the State have, and because of laws that protect against discrimination (Magee, 2012). In United States of America, the use of English a tool of communication has helped him a lot in socializing with members of other communities. In comparison with my childhood, this was a shift from the use of his Luhya language to communicate with members of his community to the use of the English language to communicate with members of the other cultures within the state. He denotes that the American social life was very different to the social lives of the people within his culture. For instance, in his culture, the extended family was part and parcel of a family. People regarded their uncles, aunties, grandparents, sisters, brothers and cousins as part of their lives. Amongst the Luhya’s, it was common to find these people staying together. The interviewee remembers that during his childhood, his parents stayed with his aunties, and their cousins, and he himself was raised by his mother’s sister. This is an aspect of a communal family. In America, it was next to impossible to find such kind of families, since everybody is concerned with their nuclear families (Jenkins, 2006). This interaction amongst members of his family made him gain the skills that could enhance efficiency in communicating with other people. This is because the interactions gave him the ability to communicate, not only with members of his nuclear family, but also with members of his extended family. Another element that shaped my interviewees perception about his culture is the media. Through the media, my interviewee was able to learn on the various aspects of his culture, strengthening his beliefs and perceptions of his cultural practices. For instance, there was a popular documentary in his home state titles, “out of Africa”. This was a documentary that depicted aged people of various tribes within Africa (Reilly, 2006). These people highlighted the various cultural values of their tribes, and how they have changed over the years because of modernization. However, these people had a bias towards women, as they held a traditional view of their capabilities and roles. For instance, they denoted that women are supposed to stay at home, taking care of the house hold, and that there are certain jobs reserved for women, and some for men. Jobs like hunting were a masculine job, and only preserved for the male (Gifford, 2009). However, at the end of the documentaries, the producers managed to educate their viewers on some misconceptions of the jobs highlighted. For instance, in one episode, the producers of the documentary managed to bring a one hour analysis on the misconceptions that the traditional views have upon women, and such misconception is that there are certain jobs that women cannot do. In the modern times, women are able to work at the military, or even manage a high profile company. These are the lessons that he learnt from the media. In conclusion, my interviewee has some values that he holds dear to himself. For instance he values family life, and believes that a family does not only consist of a nuclear family, but also an extended family. He believes that language is an important cultural value, and it must always be preserved at whatever condition. My interviewee also believes that women have an important role to play in the country, and they must not be discriminated upon in terms of allocation of resources. References: Gifford, P. (2009). Christianity, politics and public life in Kenya. London: C. Hurst. Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence culture: where old and new media collide. New York: New York University Press. Kirwen, M. C. (2003). African cultures and religion. Nairobi, Kenya: Maryknoll Institute of African Studies. Magee, C. L. (2012). Africa in the American imagination: popular culture, racialized identities, and African visual culture. Jackson [Miss.: University Press of Mississippi. Reilly, B. (2006). Culture warrior. New York: Broadway Books. Shipton, P. M. (2010). Credit between cultures. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press. Read More