Seminar
Synopsis of Seminar Led by Ruth E. Van Reken
Intercultural
Consultant
Countless children across our globe no longer live in the cultural worlds their parents and/or grandparents have always known. Some have had their entire country and its culture taken away by war or political divides. Others have moved with parents to a new country and become part of the culture and ways of that land while parents retain the habits and customs of their past world.
Many Iranian youth are among this growing number of people now called Cross-Cultural Kids (CCKs). How do we begin to understand the impact on individuals, families, and our world because of this new type of cultural mixing and learning? It has never happened before in the history of our planet at the level, complexity, and rapidity of today's world.
During the 2006 D A NESH Institute Conference, our seminar and ensuing panel discussion with four Iranian young people who had grown up among various patterns of cross-cultural interactions helped us begin to explore the implications of this developing phenomenon . The panelists represented new patterns of cultural identity many young people experience in today's changing world. Model 1 describes some common ways CCKs (including Iranian youth) may relate to the surrounding dominant culture.
FOREIGNER
Look different Think different |
HIDDEN IMMIGRANT
Look alike Think different
|
ADOPTED
Look different Think alike
|
MIRROR
Look alike Think alike |
Copyright 1996-David C. Pollock/Ruth E. Van Reken
Our panelists believed they, and many others with roots in different countries, could relate to being in at least the foreigner, hidden immigrant , and adopted boxes at various points of their lives. Often the mirror box is the hardest one for CCKs to identify with deeply including most of our panel members.
Of course, there are reasons so for this. Iranian youth who immigrate with their parents may begin life in the new country relating to its culture and people as a clear foreigner (depending, of course, on the physical appearance of the dominant culture around them). Issues of language as well as appearance make it clear to themselves and others that they are new here and do not yet know how to function in all the nuances of their new cultural world. This is a relatively comfortable place to be because others will make allowances when they make cultural miscues. They already expected these CCKs to be “different.” CCKs also understand clearly that they are not culturally the same as those of the dominant culture. Their relationship to others may be an “us/them” relationship, but at least it is clear.
After being here awhile, however, Iranian youth may be more in the adopted box. This is a common place for those who are born in the new country as well. Internally, these young people may begin to take on the attitudes and cultural ways of this new place as they are influenced by the surrounding dominant culture through the media, friends and school. While they may feel they have become quite, for example, “American,” others see their different physical appearance and make very wrong assumptions about who they are. Many Iranian youth and other immigrant children resent it when someone asks where they are from and when they reply “ Indianapolis ” (or wherever), the other person asks, “No, I mean, where are you really from?” Unlike those in the foreigner box, who they are inside is not who others expect them to be. This can cause confusion and negative stereotyping.
When these same Iranian youth return to Iran , however, they are most likely to find themselves in the hidden immigrant box. If they were clear immigrants, or “foreigners,” people would not expect them to be “the same”. Now, because they look the same as others in the dominant culture and often speak the same language, people expect them to be the same in their cultural values, knowledge and practice. If they do not know how things operate in the more subtle ways of culture, no room is given for errors they may make. Their differences are pathologized rather than understood as relatives begin to wonder what is “wrong” with this child. CCKs, in turn, may often feel impatient with those of their original “home” country as well because they too, assume there will be more internal “sameness” based on the external sameness. This impatience can be intensified if the child has been idealizing that home country (e.g. ran) as “perfect” and the reality isn't matching that dream either.
In any given community, when people relate as hidden immigrants or adoptees, what individuals expect from one another based on what they see in the more obvious places of traditional culture – ethnicity, dress, food, language, traditions, gender roles, etc. – is no longer reality. In a world that most often defines diversity or diversity programs by the externals of culture, this can be particularly confusing because little allowance is given in the media or in many of these programs for this type of hidden diversity – “ a diversity of experience that shapes a person's life and world view but is not readily apparent on the outside, unlike the usual diversity markers such as race, ethnicity, nationality, etc. ( Ruth E.Van Reken and Paulette Bethel, CIES, 2003. )
Although some CCKs may feel they have never lived in a mirror relationship with the dominant culture (some say they fit everywhere and nowhere), many, including Iranians, know the wonder of feeling as if they belong to a group when that group includes others who have also lived a cross-cultural experience as children. These are the people who seem to understand the dynamic of their lives even when so many external details are different.
There is good news in all. First, as Iranian youth, their parents, and those who work with them begin to understand that the feeling of being caught between cultural worlds is not because something is “wrong” – either with parent or child – but it is the new “normal” for children growing up in a culturally mixed environment, we can all relax a bit. We can begin to work with what is rather than worrying about what is not. There are countless gifts of language acquisition, large world view, being cultural bridges children learn when they grow up in a broad cultural context. Parents who understand this can rejoice and help their children develop these skills with intentionality. In a globalizing world, those who can negotiate well between cultures are at an advantage as they seek careers, find new friendships, and explore the world.
The second good news is that, as we come to understand the experience of many Iranian youth, we can begin to apply these lessons learned to our changing world. Perhaps we can begin to think about broader ways to describe culture as one of shared experience rather than only the traditional ways. Perhaps we can bring new light to diversity programs by introducing the concept in concrete ways that there are many types of hidden diversities people experience rather than, again, the more traditional ways we have seen them.
Our discussions on all these matters have truly just begun. The panelists gave us incredible food for thought as they told their stories. We saw how different these stories were in many ways, yet how similar in others. Hopefully, in the future, we will hear from others who will take these seeds planted and help us grow them into bigger trees of understanding to help not only Iranian youth but those from many other places and experiences as well.
Ruth E. Van Reken, co-author, Third Culture Kids: The Experience of Growing Up Among Worlds , 2002
A CCK is a child who is living in – or meaningfully interacting with – two or more cultural environments for a significant period of time during developmental years.” Adult cross-cultural kids (ATCKs) are those who grew up as CCKs.
Members of the panel included Homa Hariri, Cyrus Hayat, Azin Lotfi, and Farbod Shafiei.
