MY EARLY CULTURE SHOCK

MY EARLY CULTURE SHOCK EXPERIENCES

Many friends of mine have suffered from culture shock. At the time they knew they were suffering, but had no idea this affliction actually had a name.  I think it might have helped if they had known that culture shock has been researched, studied and catalogued, and is considered a kind of illness.

I had culture shock.  Not once.  Multiple times.  You see my dad was a diplomat.  We were all Chileans and he worked for the Chilean Foreign Service.  So we were always moving from place to place, country to country.  Not for sightseeing, but to establish ourselves for a period of time, which was often four to five years.

This disease sounds pretty benign but it isn’t. Even so, it was never mentioned in our family.  Looking back, all of us, kids and parents, went  through it, sometimes pretty severely.

Why wasn’t it mentioned?  Well, a diplomat’s family is much like a military family.  They are sent overseas for work, not pleasure.  There is no way to get out of it. 

You are expected to adapt, fit in, learn the new language and customs as quickly as possible, get good grades in school, make friends, all in the span of a few weeks or in the worst of cases, months.

I don’t know how other people, or other families do this.  Only how my four siblings and I did it.  And how my parents did it,

Since we had been exposed to regularly occurring upheavals since babyhood we didn’t know any better, and expected it. This probably helped.  We made a huge effort. Since no one told us this effort was unusual, we didn’t think it was.

For most of my childhood and adolescence, when overseas, I arrived (usually in mid year) at a new school, was introduced as the foreign girl to the rest of the class, and then expected to “catch up” and “pass the grade.” 

I must admit that being the exotic girl from somewhere else did help.  One or two of my classmates always approached me to make friends.  When teachers saw me studying extra hours, they were probably more lenient.  At least the first year. By the second year, I was expected to do as well (by the teachers), or much better (by my parents) than others in the class. But I had been given a helping hand. I was on my way to overcoming culture shock.

This process however, is NOTHING compared to what happened when we went back to our home country.  It was something much worse: reverse culture shock.  Yes, this is even harder to go through than plain old culture shock. 

Wait, you’re thinking.   She was going home! Shouldn’t have that been easier?

Nope.  Much worse.

Since I was Chilean, looked Chilean and had a Chilean accent, I was given absolutely no slack.  I wasn’t “exotic”.  Teachers, classmates and relatives did not understand what I was going through, why I was sad and disoriented.  They expected me to be just like everyone else the first day back.

It hand´t been so bad the first time back at age seven.  I was little, so I was allowed to be different. However, as I neared my teenage years, it got harder.  If you think changing schools is bad, I can tell you changing schools on going back “home” is close to hell.

My first negative experience was when I was eleven. Cliques had formed. My classmates were banded together with crazy glue.

My childhood friends from five years back were the worst, especially if my and their parents knew each other. Their parents had probably said to mine: “Now be sure to be nice to Cecilia because she just returned from overseas”. 

The kiss of death.

I dressed differently, spoke differently, didn’t understand the local expressions, wanted to talk about another country.  It was like I had the plague. 

I learned fast though, about the dos and don’ts.  The next time I returned “home”, it was easier.  I also had a couple of new foreign culture shock experiences under my belt, which had taught me a couple of useful things.

Ok, so if you are still in school or college, let me give you some tips.  I’ll give other tips for adults next time.  Or maybe some of you out there have some of your own.  This time I’m concentrating on the younger group.

{C}1.     If possible, try to get rid of any foreign accent or sayings.

{C}2.     Tune in to local expressions and use them a lot.

{C}3.     Buy clothing that fits the local fashion, and wear it.

{C}4.     Laugh at jokes even if you don’t understand them (eventually you will),

{C}5.     Try not to talk about the last place where you lived. It’s been my experience no one will be interested.

{C}6.     Try telling people about your current activities, say a weekend with your cousins.

{C}7.     Observe, observe, observe.  Listen, listen, listen.  Watch local body language. Imitate it whenever you can, especially when expressing delight sadness or dismay.  Your cultural survival may depend on it.

Ok, I’ve told my story. Now it’s your turn.  Tell me your stories about overcoming culture shock.

US purchase of stolen Mexican children

This morning while going through stories about immigration on the Huffington Post, I came across one that stood out in its horror, and also for its connection to the main themes in my novel "Yoali".  In this news post, a young teenage girl who was kidnapped by human traffickers, saw small Mexican children being sold to Americans.  She was also forced into prostitution.  Yoali is captured and forced into sexual bondage in the novel, Her son is put up for sale.  We don´t get to hear much about this kind of tragedy much on the news, though it is happening on the border all the time.  Please leave your comments about this ongoing and terrible situation, and what you think should be done about it. 

Mexico missing children - exclusive report

By Nick Martin

A Mexican girl who was held captive by human traffickers and later managed to escape tells Channel 4 News how she witnessed babies and children being "sold to order" to American citizens.

The Department of Homeland Security in Washington DC says the girl, known only as Maria, had "significant information" and possessed a "remarkable memory" of her experiences inside the gang.

In a chilling interview with Channel 4 News the teenager tells of a cross-border trade in babies and young children, where Mexican and US gangs worked together to supply a demand in the United States.

Her interview with the programme has prompted US authorities to launch a criminal investigation and in late December agents flew the teenager to the United States for a full interview after Channel 4 News alerted authorities.

Maria was 16-years-old when she was lured into the gang by a young man on the streets of the deadly Mexican border town of Ciudad Juarez.

Since the 1990s thousands of women have disappeared from the town, and hundreds of bodies bearing signs of rape and sexual mutilation were dumped on waste ground in the city.

Thousands more have never returned.

Despite international coverage of the story including a film starring Jennifer Lopez, the disappearances continue.

In 2009, 55 teenage girls vanished in the town, which has been gripped by violence as two drug cartels fight a lethal turf war for cocaine smuggling routes to America.

Whilst investigating the fate of the missing girls Channel 4 News correspondent Nick Martin and producer Guillermo Galdos discovered Maria and carried out the interview whilst she was in hiding.

Few girls return after going missing and Maria's interview sheds light on the fate of so many in her position.

She said she had been given presents and promised a job in an office by the gang member but was instead drugged and raped and sold to men. She explained what the gang did to one girl who tried to escape.

"They took a gallon of gasoline and started pouring it over her," said Maria.

"One of the men told me 'if you don't do as I say I will do the same to you'. I wanted to look away - but they didn't let me.

"Even though the girl was on fire they kept hitting her. They were laughing as if they were enjoying what they were doing.

"They burnt her alive."

Maria, which is not her real name, said the gang held young women in a house on the Mexican border until they were sold to the US as sex slaves. But she said they also dealt in children and told of on one occasion when the gang was contacted by a woman in New York.

"She called and was very angry. She said she needed a seven-year-old girl and a nine-year-old boy - and she needed them in three days."

Maria told Special Agents that the gang would prowl the streets of poor areas and look for children.

"They stole the children," she said. "One of the gang members took a six-year-old kid. I had to look after him for three hours. He told me he wanted to see his mummy.

"Then I started crying, I said: "I don't think you're ever going to see your mummy again." All he kept saying was I want to see my mummy."

US officials have a keen interest in this case. As a result of the interview US officials have begun investigating along with the Mexican authorities.

Maria, who managed to escape after a gang member left her alone in a house, says children were often around. But not for long.

"I saw the Americans taking kids," she said. "A four-year-old and another boy, he barely walked, he was only about two years old. They took them to New York."

The US State Department estimates that more than 20,000 young women and children are trafficked across the border from Mexico each year. But conviction rates remain low.

Mexico's Attorney General Arturo Chavez has been accused of not doing enough to bring human traffickers to justice but insisted it was an issue the country was "definitely focussing on."

Maria has been told that she could have to give evidence against the gang of they are caught. It is something she says she is determined to do.

"Women are sold, they are abducted, bought and even killed by these men. If these men are ever found, jail won't be enough to make them pay for the way they've made us feel."

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE WORKSHOPS

FACTS:  One in 4 women will experience domestic violence during her lifetime. Every year, 1 in 3 women who is a victim of homicide is murdered by her current or former partner.

 “Now when I look in the mirror, I feel like I’ve changed, like I´m another person.  I feel more confident. My self-esteem has grown enormously”.

So says Adela, who is attending a domestic violence workshop being held in the Riverdale area of Maryland.

The “Pursuing Our Dreams” workshops, directed by community outreach facilitator Ana González have been meeting regularly for weeks.  In the first sessions, the women let everything out, tearfully sharing their most stressful experiences with six or seven fellow workshop attendees.   They talked about their insecurities, their fear, and their unhealthy dependence on their partners, problems that plague many traumatized victims of domestic violence.

The workshop session I attended had moved on to a second phase. Under the guidance of Ms. González, the group talked about self-esteem:  what it is, whether they had it, whether it had grown over the course of the workshop.  They all agreed that it had.

While bolstering self-esteem is an important step for women who are trying to recover from domestic violence, Ms. Gonzalez says that the workshops have a greater long-term goal:

 “The workshops are really all about creating women leaders. I would like these women to eventually set up their own workshops, and then go one step further: create an organization of their own for the protection of women”.

Ana González began and currently carries out these workshops on a volunteer basis.  She previously worked in a similar capacity at Casa de Maryland.  She is now looking for funding to expand this initiative. She says that while she knows the women have grown a lot through the workshops, she has also learned a lot from them:

“The women who come here have suffered a lot, but are also very strong.  I admire their ability to solve their own problems and move forward. They are an inspiration.”

IMMIGRATION WOES

In my novel, the main character, Yoali has her two-year old child Elisito stolen. This is just one example of the terrible things that happen to people who cross into the U.S.  I´d love to hear your comments about this. You can comment in English or Spanish. I will answer in whatever language you prefer.