私醫聯招 英文歷屆試題｜第 637 題

The United States is a nation of immigrants, and the patterns of immigration as well as the reasons people immigrate vary substantially. A common characteristic among the majority of immigrant families, however, is stress associated with immigration. Many of the values, beliefs, and strategies that immigrant families and individuals have followed in order to function successfully in their home cultures differ from U.S. norms. An immigrant family’s system will experience stress to the extent that members find that strategies they have used in the past to accomplish family tasks are not as effective in the social, economic, and political contexts of the United States. Therefore, in addition to the normative and non-normative stressors that families encounter, immigrant families experience unique stress and change related to migration and acculturation.

Acculturation—the process of adjusting to a new culture or society—involves potential changes in identity, values, behaviors, attitudes, interactions, and relationships. All family systems have their own unique rules that define appropriate behaviors and interactions that are influenced by cultural and ethnic values as well as socioeconomic status and other sociodemographic factors. As family members encounter stress or pressure to change, the family system also experiences pressure to change. Family systems theory highlights the importance of interactions among individuals and family subsystems and the resultant meanings and structures that emerged out of these interactions. Thus, changes within a family are viewed as being processed by the entire family system, rather than by a single member. Moreover, stress is viewed as an agent of change rather than as inherently negative.

As a family system changes, individual family members change their ways of interacting in accordance with the new rules for interaction. For example, it is fairly common for Mexican immigrants to the United States to experience “family stage migration” in which one or two family members immigrate at a time. For example, in the vignette, a case study, Jaime immigrated first, leaving Maria and children behind, thus creating the need for changes in family strategies. As a man on his own, Jaime had accomplished many tasks—such as laundry, cooking, and other chores—typically performed by his wife. In turn, Maria, who was the de facto head of the family’s household while in Mexico, had to perform many of the roles she previously shared with her husband (e.g. socialization and discipline of children) alone, as well as family tasks that had been her husband’s sole responsibility (e.g. managing the family’s finances). When Maria and the children eventually arrived in the United States, Jaime’s and Maria’s roles had to be renegotiated, resulting in something entirely new.

The effects of acculturation are complicated by other factors as well, including family members being at different stages in the acculturation process. Some members (particularly children) may assimilate rapidly, adopting values and beliefs of the mainstream U.S. culture. Some members may experience separation; that is, they may retain the values and beliefs of their cultures of origin and reject those of the mainstream U.S. culture. The most common form of adaptation among immigrants is integration, or the blending of aspects of both the home culture and the new culture, as most immigrants find it impractical to ignore the practices of their host country and find it comforting to retain some of the traditions of their homelands.