Week 4 Jamie Nickell-- Psychosocial Experience of Immigration

Jenny, my mentee, and I making bracelets after completing her math homework.

Immigration effects every person very differently. A child may not feel the same inside that an adult immigrant feels. It depends on the person. However, I feel like many immigrants whether adult or a child have similar feelings as to feeling isolated from their neighbors, coworkers, classmates, etc. In my experience with working at AMIS, I have noticed a great deal of isolation, depression even, and low self-esteem and self-worth. To me this seems to be much more common in girls, which was not as surprising at first, but now it truly worries me because their levels of self-esteem are SO low that it is very difficult to bring up and make them realize that they are just as special.

Jenny, my mentee, is a fairly recent immigrant from Honduras. Her family moved her about 8-9 months ago. Her family consist of her mother and father (which I am told are both illiterate) and her younger brother, also at AMIS. The rest of her family members still reside in Honduras. She says she has not been back to Honduras even to visit, and that her family has no plans or means of being able to visit. She has also experienced many developmental changes in her life since her recent immigration. She faces issues with her language barrier. Her native language is Spanish, yet she is learning English on top of all her other subjects as a 4th grader. She struggles a great deal in learning English however, our communication has increased dramatically because she is learning from me as I am also learning Spanish from her.

On a whole, Immigration affects everyone. It not only affects those who are immigrants themselves, but it affects those who are involved and interact with immigrants. "While trying to acclimatize to a new culture, almost all immigrants undergo a shared experience dealing with 'unexpected obstacles of poverty, discrimination, language, ambiguous immigration or legal status' ( Gloria & Segura-Herrera, 2004). (Vaughn 96)

There are many difference in how culture socializes people. Every individual is culturally different by race, gender, religion, social status, etc. "Based on culture, people structure their worlds and determine their social interactions." (Vaughn 4) Culture is incorporated in our lives in many aspects and the fact is that how we view culture will determine how we use it in our social interactions.