Similarities Between Refugees And Immigrants

Chapter five was eye-opening indeed, and your post gives it even deeper meaning. It is true that immigrants and refugees suffer acculturative stress, and that for proper acculturation to occur it is imperative acquiring, at least, basic English. However, through your post, I was able to understand that being an immigrant and not knowing English, was not the worse situation in the world. Also, helped me appreciate more the things that I took for granted. In the same fashion, your experience reaffirms what the book states about the adult generation depending on the younger generation to be able to communicate Although your situation and mine are different, we share several similarities.

Like you, I find myself in a similar situation because
my parents depend on me to be able to communicate in several settings. For instance, to go to the bank, mall, and the supermarket, I must be present because that decreases their anxiety in those settings. Sometimes, it is quite difficult to find agreement in time to do certain things. In fact, lately, it is almost impossible due to work and school schedule. Interestingly, I arrived at the country five years ago, and they have been here for nearly ten years. And, one day while thinking about that I asked them: how were you able to handle everything before I arrived? They responded: “It used to be a constant headache. There were times in which we cried because of the frustration. In our country, we didn’t depend on anybody to communicate, and we were self-sufficient. So, when you ask a person, with time, to help you, and they cancel on you, it feels horrible”. After that conversation, I took a greater appreciation for the sacrifice they are making to provide me with an education. On another note, your post also opened my eyes to how important interpretation services are now. And as I was saying in one of my previous posts, many times we are not aware of the resources that we have within our reach. Perhaps, if we tried to learn sign-language, as we seek to learn English, Spanish or any other language, we would be more sensitive to other cultures that, one way or another, are different to ours. In conclusion, I want to thank you for sharing this with us. It was a coherent and touching post. I believe that we share many similarities, and you motivated me to learn sign language. Hopefully, I will learn and communicate with the deaf community. I think talking with them will help me understand more their culture.