Growing up in different Culture
I wanted to share my research experiences about cultural influences on different aspects of developmental domain in children of minority group. Some of us have personally gone through this stage and others have yet to experience it.
Children from Asian minority group growing in American culture serve as a basis for research. In average middle class family in Nepal, a child is raised in an extended family where adult male is responsible for maintenance of everyday household economy and female is involved in household chores and taking care of kids. Living in collective culture of multigenerational kinship, children share foods, toys, clothes, rooms as well as follow the tradition and learn the behavior that has been passed on from different generations under certain social norms. Children grown up in Nepalese middle class family if immigrated to United States, there might be several developmental changes.
The new cultural pattern affects the development due to changes in composition of household, its economic and social resources, the games children play, the foods they eat, the way the family members act toward one another. In a new culture, the child needs to adapt and succeed physically, socially and academically. As an adaptation to a new way of living, the food habits change which affects the physical development. The authors of “Immigration and the Health of Asian and Pacific Islander Adults in the United States” used the 1992–1995 National Health Interview Survey to examine the effect of immigrant status (both nativity and duration of residence in the United States) on the health of Asian and Pacific Islander adults by constructing models in which national origin was also specified. In logistic regression models adjusted for age, marital status, living arrangement, family size, and several socioeconomic indicators, immigrants were found to be in better health than their US-born counterparts, but their health advantages consistently decreased with duration of residence. Depending on the nutrient intake, it may have adverse effect on physical development. In the Asian culture, it is very rare that one sees obesity becoming a problem, due to their diet and the nutritional values of the foods they consume. The more fast food restaurants that are coming up left and right in Asia, and the more Asian immigrants coming into America and turning toward the cheaper, less nutritional fast food, the higher the obesity rate is becoming in Asian Americans. Sources for Children’s recreational activities are abundant in a developed country, so children are more involved in physical activities which improve their physical development
The child’s academic and social involvement in a new school environment plays an important role in cognitive and psychosocial development. In addition to home and neighborhood, school is a place where the child gets exposed to multicultural contemporary friends. Children of immigrants suffer from the dislocation and confusion that inevitably accompany leaving the familiar and coping with a whole new language and school structure. Cultural and native language discontinuity can be the source for children to think that their classroom is not “working”. As they are in school all day, children usually learn the new language and customs more rapidly than their parents. As a result, they frequently serve as translators, negotiators and teachers for their parents. In some cases children completely refuse to speak their home language. These communication gaps also mean that they might have difficulty learning their native values, beliefs and wisdom from their parents. Children’s cultural contexts influence how they perceive and react to their natural environment. Most children in United States readily absorb the values of conquering nature and are learning that nature is something you tame and exploit. Toddlers and preschoolers often build roads or dig to find treasures when they are playing in the sandbox. Children from families and groups that believe in the sacredness of the earth may feel uneasy by the conquering earth assumptions. As children learn about different cultural responses to the environment, they can experience physical properties and environmental phenomena in new ways and possibly rethink their assumptions. Children shift their allegiance from the family and community of origin to the popular culture of their peers and the expectation of school. Children growing up in more collective cultures may be uncomfortable with the emphasis on individual achievement that dominates most U.S. classrooms and may be judged as unmotivated.
Although family, community are important sources for developing social group, for most students school is a primary place to practice the skills necessary for making and keeping friends. It is very important for the immigrant children to maintain the balance between the beliefs, behavior learned in native culture and mainstream culture in order to form social status. They need to get help from parents and teachers to learn to negotiate between the two cultures and benefit from these multiple perspective.
In a nutshell, cultural changes make a significant difference in the development of children from minority group. Children may identify only the dominant culture and do not acknowledge their home culture. Children may think one way at home and another way at school. Children may live totally in their home culture and avoid or reject the dominant culture. The most positive outcome can be children may live in both worlds, understand and maintain a good balance between home and mainstream culture.
By Sarana Parajuli
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