Sluzki in 1979 developed a model for understanding immigrants before and after migration. According to Sluzki, the continuum of the process of migration can be broken down into discrete steps. Similarly, despite the culture and the circumstances of each family, "The process of migration, both across cultures and across regions within cultures, presents outstanding regularities" (p. 380). He differentiated five stages in the process: preparatory stage, act of migration, period of overcompensation, period of compensation, and transgenerational phenomena.
Gonzalves (1992), using primarily Latin American refugees, summarized the Grove and Torbion model as a theoretical basis for understanding the psychological stages through which refugees pass as they establish links to the new culture. He provided a practical application of the three psychological constructs that Grove and Torbion applied to individuals functioning successfully in their homeland. Both Gonzalves and Grove and Torbion postulate the existence of four resettlement stages that may be applied to understand the experiences of refugee families. These two models relied solely upon the authors' experience working with immigrant and refugee families.
Using both the qualitative data derived from the 35 interviews done on Marquez (2000)'s study and some descriptions and features of the transitional models mentioned before, the researcher designed a model where each of the migratory-acculturative processes described by the families interviewed has its own space. The placement of the parents along the continuum after migration was not based on their length of time in the United States but on the full appraisal done by the researcher of the feelings and attitudes reflected by the parents during the process of interviewing.
In an attempt to represent graphically the continuum between both processes using a 180-degree semicircle curve, it is divided into two major halves to encompass (a) the stages developed in the native sociocultural environment, and (b) stages developed in the host sociocultural environment.
Preparatory Stage (Sluzki) or Period Before the Migration Event
- 1. Awareness of the situation: Parents perceived the opportunity to better themselves and to provide better educational opportunities for their children as the primary purpose for coming to the United States. Other parents became overwhelmed by political events beyond their control because of threats to their lives, disappearances, or the outbreak of war. Family reunification, better own education, and medical reasons were also reasons stated by the sample studied.
- 2. Discernment process: Only 6 of the 16 cases who are currently married migrated together to the United States. For these six cases the process of discernment involved contemplating the possibility of dismembering the family, either because one member of the couple migrated alone or because the couple left their children behind. Parents' responses present the step of discernment as a very brief stage in their movement from one country to the other. Usually the mothers elaborate more than the fathers on it.
- 3. Decision making: This step involves concrete moves by family members toward a commitment to migrate; for example, visiting and applying for a visa at the consulates of the United States in their countries or with the contactos to find a safe way to migrate through the border. Seven of the 35 parents stated that the decision was a joint family decision, but six parents (one husband and five wives) stated that the decision was made by their spouses. These six parents stated their discomfort with this fact and acknowledged how that situation had affected the harmony of their family life later.
- 4. Disengagement procedures: All families interviewed said that they anticipated periods of loneliness and rootlessness, but none of them foresaw the move to the United States as a period of crisis that would encompass changes, modifications of their lifestyle, and even going through processes of renegotiation of their own personal identity and of their family internal organization. All families stated that they never anticipated staying in the United States for more than a "few years."
Act/Event of Migration
Although the very fact of migration constituted a brief transition from one airport to another for 22 parents of the sample, for 13 other parents the act proper took a considerable time, risks, and emotional as well as economic effort. Those parents who migrated legally always had access to institutions in the country of adoption, whereas the others who migrated illegally experienced mistrust and alienation from mainstream institutions until their situation became legal. The majority of these immigrant families managed to establish and maintain a relative moratorium on the process of acculturation and accommodation for months.
Period After the Migration Event
- 1. Cultural and social isolation (called by Gonzalves, 1992, early arrival): Parents began to feel the stressful nature that the move carried. The difference in language, education, and life style accentuates the difficulties and may lead to isolation from the mainstream society. As happened with one case (3 years in the United States), she and her family became progressively enmeshed within their own extended family network and their ethnic group network.
- 2. Cultural confusion and conflict (called destabilization by Gonzalves, 1992, and period of decompensation or crisis by Sluzki, 1979): This stage is characterized by upset and crisis, usually associated with a sense of rootlessness and the inability of the family to mourn the loss of the old country. According to Gonzalves (1992), the cognitive and behavioral destabilization are crucial in making possible the intercultural learning in order to make sense out of the new culture.
- 3. Ambiguous feelings toward self, the new society, and the group left behind: As a result of both new cultural information received and new cultural perspectives experienced, immigrant families have to accept the ineffectiveness of a very important linkage of their identities: their already attained capabilities and aptitudes to function in society. Consequently, their self-confidence deteriorated and they need to begin a process of renegotiation of their identities.
- 4. Confronting conflicts and searching for solutions (called exploration and restabilization by Gonzalves, 1992): The major characteristic of this stage is the attempts of immigrants to bring the two cultures together and to tolerate the conflict and anxiety of crossing cultural boundaries. New cultural behaviors will become integrated both into family customs and into the self-concept.
- 5. New sense of belonging (called return to normal life by Gonzalves, 1992): In this stage, individuals experience a sense of self-fulfillment with regard to cultural identity (example: "I am Mexican American"). Conflicts and discomforts experienced before have been resolved, allowing greater individual control and flexibility.
Implications
The process of acculturation experienced by immigrant Hispanics has been the topic of interest to a great number of investigators in recent years, especially in the states of California, Florida, and New York, ports of entry for a large number of immigrants. In these states during the last 2 decades there has been a steady influx of Hispanic, Haitian, South Asian, and other ethnoculturally diverse families. It is very probable that the social institutions most affected by these changing demographics are the private and public schools that have received and continue to receive the children of those immigrant families.
For these families, the school has had to perform an extraordinarily difficult role, that of serving as "an intersection between the home culture and the mainstream American culture" (Provenzo, 1985, p. iii).
Recommendations for Practitioners
Esquivel (1985) recommends that practitioners serving children whose culture the school psychologist does not know perform a careful evaluation of the child and the family. Consequently, professionals in the educational field should be aware of the consequences that the migratory and the acculturative processes have on these families. This is especially true for those immigrant families from countries that have undergone social and economic outbursts.
Based on Marquez's study (2000) it appears that the possible responses to immigrant families in cultural transitions may range from a combination of information, education, opportunities for emotional ventilation and support, contact with other families who have similar difficulties, professional availability during times of crisis to the creation of intermediary structures that mediate between the individual family and the new culture.
The Role of Education
Education is an important step in regaining the sense of belonging. When a person enters a new or strange society with its own ready-made rules for behavior, new and more appropriate behaviors must be learned to fit into the new group. By encouraging a family educative environment the confusing ambiguity of its members is probed rather than avoided, and both parents and children not only maintain a sense of self-meaning and worth but also learn to cope step by step with the challenges of the new and different environment.
Study Contributions
This study has contributed to illustrate a new perspective on the process of acculturation when it describes how the interaction between Hispanic parents and both sociocultural environments, the host and the native, have influenced their process of adjustment after migration. The sample presented the viewpoints of immigrant parents from eight Latin American countries. The specific length of time in the United States selected for the sample of this study (from 2.8 years to 25 years) provides comprehensive information about what happens during the first years after migration.
The sample also had a significant number of parents (13 out of 35) who entered the United States illegally and who are currently, at least, legal residents with stable jobs—some of them are owners of their own small businesses—and who presented themselves as responsible members in the community where they currently live.
Future Research Directions
The researcher agrees with Vega (1990) who recommended systematic ethnographic studies regarding language and the role it plays in preserving family practices and ethnic identity. Similarly, complementary studies using a common theoretical framework would show how the historic and economic circumstances of different ethnic Hispanic groups determine the characteristics of their migration and, furthermore, influence their disposition to follow through the process of acculturation.
Finally, further research is needed on the construct and theories of the process of acculturation of immigrants when the host American reality is no longer monocultural but multicultural. Similarly, this study postulates that the influence that the so-called Hispanic culture has as a major contributor to the cultural life of the community is an important factor to be considered in further research on the acculturation of Hispanics in certain areas of the United States.
Finally, the results of Marquez's study (2000) offer preliminary support to the utility of qualitative research in studying processes that occur over a period of time and where more than one factor has an influence on it.