ABSTRACT

A compelling issue challenging many societies is the movement of people across their national and cultural boundaries. This can happen for many reasons, from planned tourism (Ward 2008) and educational exchanges to the sudden displacement of frightened refugees avoiding oppression and genocide (see Berry 2006). The current case of Uzbeks fleeing Kyrgyzstan constitutes a tragic example; the recent free movement of individuals across national borders in the European Union to seek more gainful employment prospects is another. Such movements are linked to cogent political dynamics and emotional reactions. PEW (2002) showed that, although 49 percent of Americans and 77 percent of Canadians felt immigration was “good”, only 25 percent of Italians and 24 percent of Poles felt the same. In sum, immigration is an important, global, and sometimes contentious, issue. Sometimes, the process of adapting to another culture works well for both the receiving and

the immigrating groups. In such instances, the host society, with an enhanced standard of living, benefits economically from much-needed professionals and/or cheap labor and émigrés; each party is also enriched by the cultural patterns (e.g., music and food) of the other (Cleveland et al. 2009). Despite potential positive outcomes, acculturative stress (see Kim 2001; this volume) is an almost inevitable component of the adjustment process, exacerbated when there is little family cohesion (Luek and Wilson 2010). Transactively, too, emergent acculturation gaps between generations can negatively impact family bonds and relational satisfaction (Ho 2010). On other occasions, and where large-scale linguistic and cultural dissimilarities are evident

(Triandis 1994), such intergroup contact can be plagued by miscommunications, misattributions, and misunderstandings (e.g., Li 1999), especially so if acculturators are labeled intruders, outsiders, or invaders and perceived as straining the original integrity of the system (Dandy and Pe-Pua 2010). In still others, and for highly complex sociopolitical reasons-as exemplified by the position of many Muslim immigrants in Western countries-alienation, distrust, and intergroup discrimination violence can prevail (see Luek and Wilson 2010). Despite varying circumstances, both foreigners and hosts in a given environment undergo acculturation, involving adaptation to one another’s presence.