Week 4; Jonathan Hilton

Week 4: Psychosocial Experience of Immigration
Jonathan Hilton

Children in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, eating oranges.
I worked at a school/orphange in 2008 & 2009; now, I have
 noted that several children at AMIS are from Honduras.
The children pictured have experienced significant shifts
in most of the levels of Bronfenbrenner's model.

How is a child’s world turned upside down through the process of immigration? Every time I see my mentee, Jadier, I stop and ask myself how this 8-year-old has found the courage to face the everyday struggles that come with living in an entirely new world. When I was talking with Jadier this week, it occurred to me that all four layers of Jadier’s “‘layers’ of environment” (Vaughn, page 46) in the Bronfenbrenner model have been shifted in some significant way. Obviously, his macrosystem has changed dramatically with his move to the continental U.S. The change in language is one major change in Jadier’s macrosystem that affects all three other layers. Jadier’s exosystem has shifted because of the change in workplace environment his parents have undergone. Notions that would be far too abstract for Jadier to understand, like changes in social status due to having immigrated, are now a part of his everyday reality. The mesosystem has gone from one of the traditional Puerto Rican barrio to a Cincinnati apartment complex, complete with a new mix of peoples, races, religions, and customs. And finally, at the microsystem level, Jadier may eventually experience that role reversals mentioned in Chapter 4 of Suarez-Orozco.

What is it like to have so many layers of one’s existence peeled away and replaced with new ones? I suppose that I have had a few experiences in which all four of Bronfenbrenner’s layers underwent a significant change, but none of them were ever as challenging as Jadier’s experience. For instance, although all of my “layers” shifted when my family moved from South Carolina to Ohio when I was six, not all of the layer shifts were detrimental. My family moved because my father was leaving academia for a good job at Procter & Gamble here in Cincinnati, so at the microsystem and exosystem levels, I experienced increased familial resources coupled with a rise in socioeconomic status, whereas many immigrants experience some sort of social demotion.

Even with the changes, I managed to make
friends quickly in the Cincinnati area and
I learned to fit in. Integration for me
was easier than it will be for Jadier.

Meanwhile, although there was no language barrier for me per se, I suddenly had an “accent” and my new friends sometimes questioned me about it or poked fun at it. I soon learned how to emulate “Yankee speech,” however, and the questions stopped. I made new friends and joined a new church, so my mesosystem stabilized rapidly. Finally, what about the “culture shock” of moving to the North? My macrosystem had changed from “Southern U.S.” to “Northern U.S.,” but honestly, for the most part the kinds of worldview shifts that went on as part of the move simply went over my head. I did notice that people in my new home comported themselves somewhat differently and talked differently, but I adjusted quickly. Within a couple of years, any thoughts I had of moving back to South Carolina or returning to the South had stopped. (At least, until I began looking at colleges many years later.) I look forward to learning more about my mentee and his experience, and I hope I will be able to do something to help him emotionally process the powerful shifts he has undergone since coming to the continental U.S.