Connection
Between Time and the Importance of Home Culture
Migration has
always existed; basically it is a constant process going on in the world,
stretching through thousands of years. It is a topical issue, because of the
mass migration coming from the East. My point is that as time passes by, the
culture of origin, the home culture becomes more and more important to the
individual, which is good, as long as it concerns the individual and it is not forced
onto others.
A migration from
the East can be observed throughout history, many European nations are
descendants of Eastern nomad tribes. After the Second World War to strengthen
the weakened economy, West-Germany invited many Turkish guest-workers (Detsch).
More Middle-East nations followed, and went not only to Germany, but to other
Western European countries. In the 1999 movie East is East, directed by Damien O’Donnell, the audience is
presented with the story of the Khan family. The father is a Pakistani migrant,
who arrived in Great Britain in the 1970s. He married a British woman, and they
had six children (Khan-Din). This proves that when he arrived to Britain it was
not important to him to marry a woman of his own culture. The father wants his
sons to contribute to Pakistani values and tradition, and to marry Pakistani
girls he had chosen (Khan-Din). This represents that as time passed by home
culture became more important to the father. What is wrong about this is that
he oppresses others and their free will.
John Berry’s model
(1994; 2001) of acculturation separates four strategies as follows:
integration, when the individual adjusts to the host culture and at the same
time maintains his or her own culture; assimilation, when the individual gives
up his or her own culture; separation, which means that the individual
maintains his or her own culture and rejects interaction with the host culture;
and marginalization, which is when the individual feels part neither of the
home culture, nor of the host culture. (Berry). An interesting aspect
connecting to the topic is that where religion is stronger there is a stronger
need of sticking to home culture traditions, just like it was important in the
movie for the Muslim father.
A personal aspect
on the topic is that my parents moved to Belgium as young adults, and I was
born there. According to them they never spoke French to me, only Hungarian,
because they wanted their child to speak their mother tongue. Despite their
efforts my brother, who was born in Belgium, and I speak French, because except
for our parents, the environment we were brought up in was French. Later we
moved back to Hungary, because my parents did not want to raise their children
in a foreign culture, yet they acknowledged the benefits of growing up
bilingual, so they always encouraged us to learn French, and see the world or
move abroad. This exemplifies that they never forced us to contribute to their
decisions.
What is common
between both stories is that with time passing by the home culture became
increasingly important. First the father in the movie enjoyed the new culture,
just like my parents did, but later they started to trace back their roots and
adapt more and more of their home culture. In the movie it is the father
wanting to choose who his sons to marry, and in my parents case it is the fact
that they decided to move back to Hungary. The difference is that while the father forced
his family to contribute to his culture regardless of their will, my parents
have always left the decision to us.
Works Cited
Berry, J.W. (1994) Acculuturative Stress. In W.J. Lonner
& R.S. Malpas (Eds), Psychology and
Culture (pp. 211-215). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Berry, J.W. (2001) A psychology of immigration, Journal of Social Issues, 57 pp. 615-631
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