Migration Experience from the West Indies to the United States - Essay Example

Module: Migration Experience from the West Indies to the United s of America United s was built by immigrants and for a very long time it has always welcomed newcomers. It needed them to settle and cultivate its vast lands or on the alternative, work and drive its industrial sector. This open door policy is what has made the US very attractive to immigrants who cut links with their native home and travel vast stretches in order to resettle in this land where hard work and determination pays off. Portes and Rumbaut are quick to point out that modern immigrants are predominantly from third world nations (12). These immigrants once they reach here are faced with challenges which they have to conquer if they are to have an easy life and eventually succeed in their new environment. This research examines the challenges immigrants go through with the discussion focusing on a family from Haiti. The paper will expound on how immigrants go about in settling in their new homes, general receptiveness of neighbors, race discrimination, jobs, deciding whether to assimilate or acculturate and young ones schools life. Marie Lafont, who is my aunt, migrated to the United States of America from Haiti in 1976, she settled in Brooklyn New York with her husband and three children. The area was predominantly black with a large Haitian community therefore the general reception they got was a warm one. Portes and Rumbaut state that once here, some immigrants enjoy better conditions than back home (18). This is demonstrable in my aunt’s case where the house they were to live in was bigger than what they had been accustomed to back in Haiti. In their new home they had a front yard and the rooms were much larger than what they were used to. Transitioning into their new way of life was not easy with things like speaking English with a French accent being an issue but with the help of the community around them, transitioning was made simpler. Upon their settling down in Brooklyn, my aunt discovered that the race factor was a major problem in the US, an issue that had not crossed her mind back in Haiti and was a major defining factor in her new home. She found out that due to her skin color, certain barriers were erected for example being discriminated against when applying for her nursing job. This new dimension added on to the everyday difficulties she was starting to face. All of a sudden the complexion of her skin became a problem and to make matters worse, this was an issue she had no control over. Through her interaction with her neighbors, she found out that Haitians who had preceded her had faced and were still facing this racism stigma. This stigmatization was a consequence of the low status Black Americans had in the society. Kasinitz notes that if black immigrants joined and assimilated into the same society, they would be regarded as blacks and were bound to suffer the same fate as the Black Americans (7). Added to this fact, she realized that complete assimilation into her new way of life could mean she would lose some form of status. She came from a community where black people constituted the majority and where politicians and authority figures were the same skin color as hers therefore she would move a step down if she ascribed to the description of a minority. My aunt discovered that to counter this stigmatization, her and her fellow Haitian neighbors could distinguish themselves from Black Americans by use of their ethnic identity. This she told me, would serve to show that they were foreign black people who had immigrated to the United States. My aunt is a nurse by profession therefore after having settled in her new neighborhood, she sought work in hospitals around Brooklyn. The prospects of working in the US had hugely enticed my aunt as she knew that nurses are valued and their pay is commensurately higher than in Haiti. It was with hope that she applied to various hospitals and finally settled in New York Methodist hospital, one of the oldest hospitals in the region. My aunt had worked as a nurse for ten years in Haiti so she did not portend any significant issues arising from her new job. However she was surprised when she had to take a class to orientate herself with the American nursing practice standard. She found this was what immigrant foreign nurses were required to undergo. What immigrant nurses were paid as wages was to prove to be another surprise for her. Immigrants were viewed as having an inferior type of education therefore could not be paid at par with the American nurses. Worse of were immigrants nurses who could not comprehend English as their wages were even much lower. However, things improved after finishing her orientation and slowly, she started getting a better pay. The working style in the US was also manifestly different from what she was used to in Haiti. Nurses in the US were required to have strong interpersonal skills when it came to interacting with patients under ones care. In Haiti, nurses would just administer what the doctor had ordered. In the US, nurses apart from administering what the doctor had prescribed were also required to interact with their patients as it was viewed as therapeutic. At the hospital where she worked, my aunt also observed that the style adopted in solving problems was different from how hospitals in Haiti solved their issues. In Haiti, nurses play a passive role when it came to solving problems in their daily work scenarios. The doctors had the sole role to recommend courses of treatment to patients and they never entertained suggestions from nurses. In the US, she found out that nurses play an active role in their daily duties. Doctors would sometimes consult them before starting a course of treatment. She realized doctors in the US recognized that some nurses had been in the profession for a long time and with the passage of time they had grown knowledgeable in their respective fields therefore they could offer advice on some cases. This inclusive approach practiced in the US made her feel valued and recognized for her expertise. Nursing though an honorable profession, does not attract many young people, hospitals all over US face nursing shortage. It is circumstances like these that have created the need to source for nurses from outside. Portes and Rumbaut state that such opportunities are what attract immigrants to our shores (13). The New York Methodist hospital is no exception to this problem, it has over the years been having short falls in the number of nurses it needed. To cover this deficit, it has over time been employing more foreign nurses to remedy this phenomenon. My aunt observed that many of the immigrant nurses once settled in start grappling with the psychological issue of whether to assimilate or to acculturate. Kasinitz explores the issue of whether to acculturate as it allows them to adapt to a new culture without losing their own, or on the other hand whether to assimilate because a person will readily associate with his new surroundings without having his previous culture acting as a hindrance to this new one (7). Acculturation is the path my aunt chose as Brooklyn already had a Haitian population and they decided to follow what was already being practiced. They were assisted on how to acculturate without losing track of their tradition. This however has not been the case with all other immigrant nurses whom she has noted do not know anyone when they land in the US. Kasinitz noted that strong ethnic associations assist immigrants to settle. Immigrants who do not have a community based organization which can be of assistance face a much tougher time (8). My aunt observed the various ways that immigrants tend to adopt in order to come to terms with their new environment, she noticed some nurses engaging in questionable behaviors with the hope of fitting into their new surroundings. For example, she noticed some of the younger immigrant nurses getting into the clubbing culture and some who went to the extreme of engaging in substance abuse. The issue to assimilate or acculturate is not unique to immigrant adults; kids are also confronted with this same issue when they move to another country. Portes and Rumbaut address this issue by putting forward the argument that children experience pressure on whether to adopt new culture or stick to their native traditions (253). This is what my aunt’s kids faced when they moved to the US. The ages of my aunt’s kids were 2, 12, and 15 years when they immigrated to the US. The youngest one was too young to comprehend what his brothers were experiencing; the older ones are the ones who had to grapple with this phenomenon. The cultural gap was more apparent for them than for the younger ones. They were faced with this question of whether to assimilate or acculturate. Its important to point out here that even back then, the Brooklyn-Haitian community was vibrant. It is this community that helped them out by pointing out that they could adopt some traits in their new home but they were to be careful and not to lose sight of where they came from. Everything is a process in the US. This is even so for immigrants. The language barrier was a major obstacle to my cousins initially when they settled here. They had been brought up speaking French with a smattering of English which presented a problem when they immigrated to the US. The fact that they could not converse in English and that they were new students made it hard for them to make new friends. The most affected was the eldest one who was quite an extrovert back in Haiti. The overall result was that they ended up being lonely due to alienation which in time made them struggle with their self esteem and their academics suffered in the process. The situation however got better as they settled in the US high school way of life and they eventually became slowly integrated into the system. In review of my immigrant aunt’s life, one can see the pitfalls they and other immigrants face when they immigrate to new land and in this case, when they settled in the United States of America. To many immigrants English is a second language therefore the issue of language barrier affects many of them when they come to the US. Even those who can speak English still encounter problems due to their accents or incorrect pronunciations. This dialect challenge affects them in their every day lives. Adults will miss out on jobs and fail to attain the economic status they were striving for and kids are bound to be victimized due to being viewed as foreigners. Portes and Rumbaut suggest that to avoid such scenarios, policies demanding English qualification by all immigrants should be in place (365). Such a policy mandating all future aspiring immigrants to learn English in their native countries before immigrating would help resolve this issue. When such a policy is instituted cases of immigrants being victimized due to this issue will be hugely reduced. The race factor in America is an emotive issue which has been discussed in previous papers but no long lasting solution seems to be forthcoming. In this paper however, I chose to dwell on the issue of race as viewed from an immigrant perspective. Immigrants whose native land is composed of black people appear to be affected more with regards to racial discrimination. This is because when they settle into their respective communities, they are usually confused with other Black Americans and become subjected to the same prejudice accorded to Black Americans. As pointed out in the paper, they have developed a response mechanism to mitigate the racism effects. They have responded by clinging to their native roots in order to be viewed as culturally and ethnically distinct from the native Black Americans as it is the only way they can progress. It is important to point out that this is a scenario which is not exclusive to the 1970s when my aunt immigrated, this situation still persists and new immigrants are faced with the same conditions when they settle here. The only way immigrants will not be subjected to this situation is when discrimination ends. It has become apparent that the ensuing psychological state of immigrants was not fully thought through by policy makers when they decided to open up our borders. The conflict many face in choosing whether to assimilate or acculturate is an issue that could have been envisaged and appropriate steps taken to counter the emotional turmoil faced by immigrants. Thanks to the strong vibrancy of the Haitian community, my aunt’s family was not adversely affected by this issue as others have. An overview of the experience of my aunt’s family and workmates shows that for immigrants to have an easy transition, the host nation should appreciate their way of life. Counseling should be explored as a method to help in acculturation. Centers for counseling should be established with programs made to fit each immigrant’s needs. This helps in quickly assisting the immigrant to fit into the system. It is indicative to state that immigrants are like trees which have been cut and planted elsewhere, they will slowly regenerate their roots and slowly adapt to their new home, settle down and start contributing to our economic growth just like every other American does. Works Cited Kasinitz, Phillip. Caribbean New York: Black Immigrants and the Politics of Race. 2nd ed. New York: Cornell University Press, 1992. Print. Portes, Alejandro and Rumbaut, Rubén G. Immigrant America: A Portrait. 3rd ed. Berkley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2006. Print. Read More