CAPS #4 U-Curve Model

To start things off, the articles we read for this assignment did a good job of opening my eyes to the amount of people located in Lincoln that have been refugees in some way, shape or form. And the fact that Lancaster county is one of the top 20 relocation spots for Asian refugees and immigrants shocked me too, I had no idea that Lancaster county had so many refugees within its borders.

That being said, I after reading through the chapter I decided to focus this blog on the U-curve model concept to analyze these articles. The reason I chose the U-curve model was because it encompasses many different phases of cultural adaptation, which I thought fit in well with these articles. The U-curve model is described as "a theory of cultural adaptation positing that migrants go through fairly predictable phases, excitement/anticipation, shock/disorientation and adjustment, in adapting to a new cultural situation." (Martin & Nakayama, 2012 pg 337) I think that this fits in very well with the articles because it encompasses a wide array of emotions involved with the whole process of relocating to a new country. Personally, if I was forced to move away from my family, friends and everything I cared about, I would go through quite the array of emotions also.

The first phase of the U-curve model is anticipation. Immigrants usually have a feeling of anticipation when moving to a new country and they are usually excited for the new journey ahead of them. In some cases the immigrants may have more of a feeling of apprehension than excitement for the first portion of the move, but the feeling of apprehension will usually decrease over time. (Martin & Nakayama, 2012 ppg 337-338) I can see the anticipation phase happening for most immigrants, but, I think that most refugees would not go through this phase because of the manner in which they are force from their countries.

The next phase of the U-curve model was culture shock. Culture shock is defined as a "short-term feeling of discomfort due to the lack of familiar cues in the environment."(Martin & Nakayama, 2012 pg 338) I feel that this probably happens with most of the people that relocate to a new country, regardless if they are immigrants or refugees. I think out of all the phases and aspects of the U-curve model, culture shock is probably the most important. When a person is exposed to a brand new environment and community it can be quite the change for them and can cause them distress and potentially even lead to identity crisis problems. Our textbook describes culture shock like a disease, even listing diseases that are associated with culture shock. But, like any disease, if culture shock is taken care of properly, the immigrant/refugee can recover and adapt to their new culture fairly easily. (Martin & Nakayama, 2012 pg 338)

I believe that if we have a better understanding of culture shock and the problems associated with it, we will be better able to help refugees and immigrants relate to their culture more. Our book defines culture as "learned patterns of behavior and attitudes by a group of people" (Martin & Nakayama, 2012 pg 88) and if we are able to better adapt for immigrants cultures, we will be able to decrease the amount of culture shock each person goes through. One of the best ways to deal with cultural differences is to learn how each culture communicates. Each culture throughout the world has different ways of communicating, whether it be through different languages, hand signals, body language, and so on.(Martin & Nakayama, 2012 pg 96) In order to reduce culture shock it is important that we are able to adapt to these different communication techniques and make each person that comes here has the easiest transition possible.

I included this video just for the first couple minutes of it. It asks people what they think a refuge is and a lot of them had no idea. It goes to show that the majority of people in this world are immune to things that don't directly affect them...which is a big part of the problem we have.
Side note...after about a minute the video is about a skit some people did, the first 60 seconds of the video are why I posted it. Disregard the rest :)

References:
Language Barrier Cartoon Accessed 3-7-2013
http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/l/language_barrier.asp
Martin, J.N. & Nakayama, T.K. (2012). Intercultural communication in contexts (6th ed.) Boston, MA: Mcgraw Hill
U-curve model picture. Accessed 3-7-2013.  **Edited**
http://comm211xfall2012.blogspot.com/2012/10/nurul-caps-blog-4.html
What is a refugee? - Educate Yourself Accessed 3-7-2013
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1b6h4Mf2sRg