Jandt, An Introduction to Intercultural Communication 9e
SAGE Publications, 2018
Lecture Notes
Chapter 10: Immigration and Acculturation
Learning Objectives:
10-1: Describe ways that immigration effects nations.
10-2: Describe Israel’s immigration experience.
10-3: Compare the immigration experience in Brazil and the United States.
10-4: Describe how immigration into Europe is changing the countries of the
European Union.
10-5: Explain the Physical, psychological, and communication stresses of living in a
new culture.
10–6: Identify the predictors of an immigrant’s success in adapting to a new country.
I. A World of Migration
A. The different types of migration
1. Sojourner will live in a country for 6 months to 5 years with a goal-oriented
purpose and expect to return home.
2. Migrants are both emigrants and immigrants.
a. Upon leaving the homeland, you become an emigrant.
b. When entering the destination country, you become an immigrant.
3. Expatriate is a noncitizen worker who lives in a country for an indeterminate
length of time.
4. Refugees are seeking safe haven because their home country is no longer safe
due to natural disaster or war.
5. Asylees are seeking refuge for political reasons.
B. Migration has increased dramatically since 1975.
1. In 1975, an estimated 84 million people lived outside their country of origin.
2. In 2016, an estimated 244 million people (3.3%) lived outside their country of
origin.
C. Demographics and financial status of destination and origin countries are impacted
by migration.
1. Immigrants earn money and send it back to family in their country of origin.
2. The change in demographics of the destination countries may be seen as a
threat.
II. Immigration and National Identity
A. Israel
2. The Law of Return was enacted in 1950.
a. Granting anyone with a Jewish mother or who had converted to Judaism
the right to enter as oleh (a Jew immigrating to Israel) and become a
citizen.
b. In 1970, it was extended to include the child and grandchild of a Jew, the
spouse of a child of a Jew and the spouse of the grandchild of a Jew.
3. Operation Moses in 1984–1985 began the first organized immigration of
Ethiopians.
4. Other immigrant groups that have entered are from Eritrea, Sudan, and the
former Soviet Union.
5. Today, about 25% of the population are non-Jewish.
B. Europe
1. Europe is a continent of discrete peoples with national identities.
a. The European Union was created in 1993 and consists of 27 nations.
b. Each country has both EU rules and their own national rules.
c. Immigration in Europe is a recent phenomenon. West Germany before
1960 was below 1%.
d. Immigration from Muslim countries is the greatest mass movement since
World War II.
2. Muslim Immigration
a. Muslim population in Europe grew from 29.6 million in 1990 to 44.1
million in 2010.
b. Projected to exceed 58 million by 2030.
c. Fifty years ago, in the Netherlands, there were few foreigners, today
Muslims make up about 6% of the population.
d. European countries have various policies to respond to growing Muslim
immigration.
e. France encourages immigrants to adopt all things French.
3. Refugees
a. Requesting asylum has been one way to immigrate to a European country
since the late 1980s.
b. The recent refugee crisis has intensified the European Union’s questions
regarding public safety, assimilation, and national identity.
c. 4.8 million people fled Syria two years after civil war erupted in 2011.
d. In 2015, about 1 million requested asylum in Europe.
e. Initially, Germany and Sweden welcomed refugees.
f. Attitudes changed in 2015 with an increase in terrorist attacks
g. Britain’s population is Europe’s most diverse. Nearly one in eight
residents is foreign-born.
h. Recently, France and Britain have been reluctant to accept refugees.
i. Israel, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia took in no
refugees.
C. Brazil—the largest and most populous country in South America, founded in 1500
by the Portuguese.
1. First Wave
a. Between 1880–1903, 1.9 million Europeans, mainly from Germany, Italy,
Portugal, and Spain were welcomed to replace slave labor.
b. After the American Civil War, thousands of people from the southern
United States migrated to Mexico, Cuba, and Brazil.
c. Of all of the settlements, only villa Americana prospered.
2. Second Wave
Jandt, An Introduction to Intercultural Communication 9e
SAGE Publications, 2018
a. Between 1904–1930, 2.1 million Europeans immigrated from Italy,
Poland, Russia, and Romania, most arriving after World War I.
b. In 1908, needing more workers, Brazil encouraged Japanese to immigrate.
c. In the 1920 census, 35% of São Paulo city’s inhabitants were foreign–
born.
3. Third Wave
a. Between 1930–1964, immigration was limited.
b. Laws were created to protect native workers.
c. Policies were initiated to encourage immigrants to assimilate into
Brazilian culture.
d. Classes in foreign languages were forbidden as well as magazines and
newspapers in foreign languages.
4. Recent Immigration
a. After the military coup in 1964, Brazil largely ended policies to attract
foreign migrants.
b. Brazil began receiving asylum seekers from West Africa in the 1990s.
c. In 2009, only about 2.4% of Brazil’s population was foreign-born.
D. United States
1. Colonial Policies on Immigration
a. Immigration varied in colonial America
i. Massachusetts wanted “religiously pure” settlers.
ii. Virginia and Maryland wanted immigrants for cheap labor but didn’t
allow full participation in government.
iii. Pennsylvania welcomed all settlers as equals
b. The new United States adopted the Pennsylvania model.
2. U.S. Policies on Immigration
a. In 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment established a foundation for U.S.
citizenship.
i. It was drafted to establish former slaves as citizens.
ii. In 1898, the Supreme Court decided that someone born to noncitizen
Chinese immigrants was a U.S citizen under the Fourteenth
Amendment.
b. In 1875, the first federal laws were enacted to bar convicts and prostitutes.
c. In order to prevent major changes in the country’s racial and ethnic
makeup, quotas were established beginning in 1921.
d. In 1960, 85% of the U.S population was White.
e. The 1965 Hart–Celler Immigration Act permitted citizens to sponsor
relatives to immigrate.
f. In 1997, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service estimated illegal
immigrants who enter the United States total about 5 million.
3. Contributing Countries Prior to 1800
a. European immigrants were between 4 and 5 million
b. It is estimated 12 million involuntary immigrants from Africa were
transported as slaves, with 10 million surviving the trip.
4. Contributing Countries Since 1800
Jandt, An Introduction to Intercultural Communication 9e
SAGE Publications, 2018
a. 53 million people migrated to the Western Hemisphere between 1846 and
1932.
b. Ellis Island processed its first immigrant in 1892.
c. 17 million immigrants were processed through Ellis Island before it closed
in 1954.
d. Charles Davenport helped pass the Immigration Act of 1924, one of the
most restrictive and discriminatory immigration statutes in U.S. history.
e. Largest sustained mass migration of one group
i. In 1960, fewer than 600,000 Mexican-born people resided in the
United States.
ii. In 1980, the number had grown to more than 2 million.
iii. In 2007, the surnames Garcia and Rodriguez were in the top 10 most
common names in the United States.
f. Asians were the fastest-growing group between 2000 and 2010 and in
2013 outnumbered immigrants from Mexico.
III. Immigration and Individual Identity
A. Culture Shock
1. Anxiety of functioning in an unfamiliar culture
a. 30% to 60% expatriates suffer culture shock.
b. Popularized by Kalvero Oberg (1960) to describe disorientation and
anxiety many people experience.
2. Stages of Culture Shock
a. Adler (1975) and Pedersen (1995) described the five-stage process.
b. Stage one is initial contact when everything is new and exciting.
c. Stage two involves disintegration of familiar cues.
d. Stage three involves an increase in the ability to function in the new
culture.
e. Stage four is a gradual adjustment of being more comfortable in the new
culture.
f. Stage five is when a person has achieved biculturalism and is completely
comfortable in the new culture.
3. Symptoms
a. Culture shock can be physical and psychological.
b. Physical symptoms may include overconcern about cleanliness of food,
bedding and dishes; extreme stress on health and safety as well as use of
alcohol and drugs; and a decline in work quality.
c. Psychological symptoms may include insomnia, fatigue, loneliness,
frustration, self-doubt, as well as emotional and intellectual withdrawal.
4. Reverse Culture Shock
a. Occurs when a person returns to the home country
b. May cause greater distress and confusion than the original did
IV. Predictors of Acculturation
A. Young Yun Kim (1986, 1988, 2001, and 2005) proposed cross-cultural adaptation
theory to describe the process an individual takes upon entering a new culture.
1. Host communication competence refers to the ability to communicate in the
2. Participation in host social communication refers to time and skill devoted
to learn the host culture through mass media and interpersonal communication.
3. Participation in ethnic social communication refers to the time devoted to
communicating with fellow immigrants and time devoted to mass media.
4. Host environment refers to the strength of the immigrant group to maintain its
culture and the strength of the host culture to conform.
5. Predisposition refers to how similar the home culture is to the host culture.
B. Effect of Media and Transportation Advances
1. Immigrants of the 1900s left home permanently and had little contact with
friends and family.
2. Today, the Internet makes communication easy and provides ongoing exposure
to the home culture.
3. Today’s immigrants are able to return more easily to their home countries for
visits.
4. The pressure to assimilate is not as great, making it possible for immigrants to
maintain their original cultural identity.
V. Categories of Acculturation
A. Acculturation or cultural adaptation refers to an immigrant’s learning and
adopting the new host culture.
B. Two dimensions of acculturation: Value placed on maintaining one’s original
cultural identity and value given to maintaining relationships with groups in one’s
new culture.
C. Marginalization refers to losing one’s cultural identity and no psychological
contact with the larger society.
D. Separation and segregation refer to maintaining one’s original culture and not
participating in the new culture.
E. Insularity refers to separation only.
F. Assimilation is when a person gives up their original cultural identity and
participates fully in the new culture.
G. Integration maintains important parts of one’s original culture as well as becoming
an integral part of the new culture. This ensures a continuity of culture.
H. Biculturalism and pluralism are also used to describe integration.