ntroduction
A Chinese American immigrant murdered his wife when he learned her infidelity on him. But he was only sentenced to 5-year probation considering traditional Chinese culture allows men to take out anger on their wives if they were shamed.
An Afghani father was charged with child abuse in the U.S when he kissed his infant son’s penis in public though it is a normal way to show affection to children in his home country. (Sikora 1-3) When reading the two example cases, you may have completely opposite feelings towards the above situations, though they are both culturally delicate. In the first case, you might feel angry that almost no legal punishment was given for a man who killed his …show more content…
Before that, there are a few concepts that need to be clarified. Renteln defines enculturation as “the process of acquiring the values of the group” where “he or she is born.'' (‘The Culture Defense’ 12) People are experiencing enculturation processes by family education, school education, working experience and any other social environment. Enculturation is the process of being educated to think or act like the other members of the shared social community while acculturation refers to the process of gaining a new and different culture which often happen in immigrant groups. ''While every person is subject to enculturation, the acquisition of the cognitive category of his or her society, only those who move from one culture to another are subject to acculturation.'' (Renteln, ‘The Culture Defense’ 13) The third concept is assimilation, which always goes along with acculturation. “Assimilation refers to the process by which individuals adopt the value system of the new culture” (ibid). How do these concepts make sense in the context of an immigrant …show more content…
When the dominant cultural values are in a clash with immigrants’ original culture, the sense of ''us'' and ''them'' is created. As a result, it is impossible to expect all immigrant ethnic groups to reach the assimilation phase of understanding or even being aware of some rules they should follow in their new country. Take underage marriage cases as an example. It is customary for girls to get married at young age in Iraq, so an Iraqi father who came to the U.S as refugee married his two daughters, 13 and 14 years old, to two Iraqi men. He got caught by the police and was accused of child abuse and delinquency of minor because the minimum age to get married is 17 in Nebraska. (Sikora 1) In Iraq, girls at 13 or 14 could already be considered as sexually mature, which is a time that is normal to have early marriages. They would have trouble marrying good men if they are ''too old'' in their community. I call this phenomenon “cultural misunderstanding”, which means people break the law by practicing their native customs due to the ignorance of conflicts between two cultures. Underage marriage is not the only category that belongs to cultural misunderstanding; it also frequently happens in other field
A Chinese American immigrant murdered his wife when he learned her infidelity on him. But he was only sentenced to 5-year probation considering traditional Chinese culture allows men to take out anger on their wives if they were shamed.
An Afghani father was charged with child abuse in the U.S when he kissed his infant son’s penis in public though it is a normal way to show affection to children in his home country. (Sikora 1-3) When reading the two example cases, you may have completely opposite feelings towards the above situations, though they are both culturally delicate. In the first case, you might feel angry that almost no legal punishment was given for a man who killed his …show more content…
Before that, there are a few concepts that need to be clarified. Renteln defines enculturation as “the process of acquiring the values of the group” where “he or she is born.'' (‘The Culture Defense’ 12) People are experiencing enculturation processes by family education, school education, working experience and any other social environment. Enculturation is the process of being educated to think or act like the other members of the shared social community while acculturation refers to the process of gaining a new and different culture which often happen in immigrant groups. ''While every person is subject to enculturation, the acquisition of the cognitive category of his or her society, only those who move from one culture to another are subject to acculturation.'' (Renteln, ‘The Culture Defense’ 13) The third concept is assimilation, which always goes along with acculturation. “Assimilation refers to the process by which individuals adopt the value system of the new culture” (ibid). How do these concepts make sense in the context of an immigrant …show more content…
When the dominant cultural values are in a clash with immigrants’ original culture, the sense of ''us'' and ''them'' is created. As a result, it is impossible to expect all immigrant ethnic groups to reach the assimilation phase of understanding or even being aware of some rules they should follow in their new country. Take underage marriage cases as an example. It is customary for girls to get married at young age in Iraq, so an Iraqi father who came to the U.S as refugee married his two daughters, 13 and 14 years old, to two Iraqi men. He got caught by the police and was accused of child abuse and delinquency of minor because the minimum age to get married is 17 in Nebraska. (Sikora 1) In Iraq, girls at 13 or 14 could already be considered as sexually mature, which is a time that is normal to have early marriages. They would have trouble marrying good men if they are ''too old'' in their community. I call this phenomenon “cultural misunderstanding”, which means people break the law by practicing their native customs due to the ignorance of conflicts between two cultures. Underage marriage is not the only category that belongs to cultural misunderstanding; it also frequently happens in other field