#acculturation

by autumn sierra

I think it’s important to first address the differences between cultural appropriation, cultural appreciation, and acculturation…

Here’s the link to the full context.

“Almost all Muslims in the United States are first, second, or third generation immigrants. They are noticeable in the community as women and girls wearing hijabs at minimum, if not more, and men and boys wearing robes, and both genders smelling... distinctive. They very obviously have a separate, immigrant culture, and an approach to gender roles that is considered regressive by all but the most conservative American Christians.”

I stand by my statement that many visible Muslims who are wearing different clothes from the regular Western clothing have a noticeable difference personal odor from the general population. Not always a bad odor even, just, they literally have a different personal care regimen and products that they use and a different diet, so they smell different. More acculturated and wealthier Muslims have of course acculturated more to Western dress, diet, hygiene practices and products, and so smell more like the non immigrants of their community… but now they’re less visible as Muslims.

By: Savannah Edwards

Published: Oct 5, 2022

Let’s get this out of the way: Culture doesn’t come from skin color. Culture is a way of life, it comes from your environment. Just because two people have the same skin color doesn’t mean they come from the same place. A black person in a low income neighborhood of a major city has very little in common with a black person who was born and raised in an upper-middle class suburb. My neighbor and I are both black but we have different cultures. I was born and raised in the Carolinas and he was born and raised here in New Orleans. We’re not the same people. We don’t share the same customs or traditions, and we speak two different versions of Southern American English. According to the New York Times, eating black-eyed-peas on New Years is a black American ritual, but I’ve never heard of that. I can’t remember the last time I ate black-eyed-peas on purpose.

Culture is not stagnant. Culture moves and changes and grows over time. Meanings and rituals change as people and time changes. Cultures blend with other cultures to create new ones. Italian-American culture is exactly what the name suggests, a blend of Italian and American cultures with its own foods and customs and Italian dialect. French Louisiana was owned by both the French and Spanish, but much of the Spanish influence is gone and what’s survived is very much French, along with influences from Italian, Irish, and Haitian immigrants and African slaves.

Culture never stays put, it’s as mobile as people, so I’m not sure why young people today seem to think they can “gate keep” that which is easily accessible to everyone. We live in a multicultural society that has a heavy influence on the world and social media acts as a delivery system. It’s no wonder parts of China and Korea have been heavily influenced by what black Americans are doing in the states: music, fashion, hair, etc. This includes language. The never ending argument on TikTok is the use of AAVE (African American Vernacular English) by white creators. AAVE, or Ebonics as we called it growing up, isn’t a language. There are no rules and there isn’t a proper or right way to speak it. It’s a dialect closely related to the southern dialect that is mostly used by southern black Americans in urban settings and black Canadians. I don’t use AAVE. Why? Because language comes from hearing, and no one in my immediate family who would have had an influence on my language development uses AAVE, so my vernacular is Carolina southern.

This Dr. Phil segment on cultural appropriation highlights the braids debate, another hot button social media issue. Is it cultural appropriation for white women to wear braids? Is it offensive to black people for white people to wear braids? Let me be very clear: Black American women didn’t invent box braids.

Box braids is one of many African Hair-braiding styles, keyword being: African. In certain places in Africa, hair weaving has cultural significance, but in the United States it does not. It’s just a hairstyle; it’s just fashion. It being a protective hairstyle doesn’t make it culturally significant for black Americans because braids in general, regardless of your skin color, is a protective hairstyle. African Hair Braiding didn’t become mainstream in the United States until the 90s, and it has been shared with women all over the world by African women. Russia has its own market for African Hair Braiding (search: afrokosiki orАфрокосы). Box braids went out of style in the early 2000s and you would get made fun of for getting anything thicker than micros. Now box braids are back in style and young black women are under the impression this hairstyle belongs to us. Would this be considered cultural appropriation.

Should white people get their hair braided? That’s between you and your hairdresser. If you go to Africa and want your hair braided, they won’t deny you service because you’re white. They will take your money just like anyone else except they’ll charge you less and give you better results. Simply getting your hair done isn’t cultural appropriation.

These claims of appropriation come from people who don’t understand how culture works or haven’t experienced or allowed themselves to experience a culture different than their own. There are three concepts people get confused: appropriation, appreciation, and acculturation.

Appropriation:

Simply put, cultural appropriation “takes place when members of a majority group adopt cultural elements of a minority group in an exploitative, disrespectful, or stereotypical way.” Drunk frat boys wearing sombreros on Cinco de Mayo or Black Americans wearing dashikis and claiming it as their own culture could be considered cultural appropriation, but a young woman wearing a Chinese dress she found at a thrift store to prom is not. Wearing a hairstyle because you like the way it looks on your is not appropriation.

Appreciation:

This is self-explanatory. Appreciating or participating in another culture isn’t a bad thing. If you go to markets in other countries some people might offer to dress you in their traditional clothes or style your hair. Buying art and other cultural items and displaying in their home because you find them beautiful is appreciation. I have two dreamcatchers. One was a gift from my aunt who bought it when she was on a business trip several years ago and the second is one I bought at Marie Leveau’s on Bourbon Street. This store sells all kinds of things related to catholicism, voodoo, Santeria, and Native American culture. Appreciating the beauty and history of another culture is normal. Emotionally connecting with a culture different than your own is normal.

Acculturation:

Acculturation is when you acquire or adopt a second, usually more dominant culture, due to a shift or change in your environment. When you get married, whether you and your spouse are of the same race or not, you will experience acculturation because you’re having to adapt to a new culture. Ask any immigrant what it’s like to adapt to American culture while holding onto pieces of their “birth” culture. Moving to New Orleans from Charlotte, I’ve had to adopt a new culture. Everyone will experience this at least once: an eighteen-year-old going to college, moving to a new city, getting married, converting to a new religion, starting a new job, etc.

If your personal culture doesn’t shift, change, or do a complete 180 at some point in your life then you’re not growing.

Black women have, and some still do, face discrimination due to their natural hair, but should this be a reason to stop others from wearing these hairstyles? No. What does Susie Q getting her hair braided by her best friend or Little Lauren in the Bahamas getting her hair cornrowed by a local have to do with Miss Pam trying to get a job? How do these things relate to one another? It would seem to me the best way to move forward is to bring these hairstyles into the mainstream and make them normal, but some people want a reason to remain a victim. As black women, we’re told from the time we’re very little that our hair is our crown so it makes sense that some people want to keep a victim mentality on their shoulders. Unless you’re doing something wrong, let people be offended. Their emotions, triggers, and feelings are not your responsibility. Don’t let someone else’s ignorance stop you from experiencing the world and all it has to offer.

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Where do you belong if your country has been colonised and destroyed and no one speaks the language?

Where do you belong if you live in a diaspora that's rejected by the native country?

Where do you belong if you're from a mixed family? Where do you belong if you do fit in with them but are too majority-passing and any attempts to look more like them just look ridiculous?

Where do you belong if you don't fit in with the stereotypes of the diaspora and get pushed out? 

Where do you fit in when you were raised in a culture that doesn't look like you, but you have no genetic ancestry there and any attempts to fit in are treated with mockery and derision and hatred?

Where do you belong if you're descended from the country that you live in, but you're raised by an immigrant who adopted you?

Where do you belong when, "Race is not real," but liking someone who happens to be another race is fetishisation or selling out? When people give you and your partner weird looks? When you give yourself a weird look? When your partner gives you a weird look?

What does it mean, "Race is not real," when everyone acts like it is, so it might as well be?

Where do you belong when Westerners apply their racial politics to Easterners who never grew up with them?

Where do you belong when Africans ask you what tribe you're from and you say, "African-American" and they laugh?

Where do you belong when you're Jewish, but everyone sees you as white, or you're Muslim, so everyone sees you as white or black? Where do you belong when people can't decide who you are?

Where do you belong when your native culture laments that you'll never logically reassimilate? 

This whole thing seems so stupid. More and more, each minority group boxes in their own members. "You have to look like us and act like a stereotypical version of us or you don't belong."

You go from being judged by other cultures for your features to being judged by your own culture for your features like your features are a passport to how you act. Everywhere you go, you are stereotyped and, if you don't want to be seen and stereotyped, you are seen as suspect. 

The whole thing feels so fucking stupid.

They had a rich culture (lists all the ways the Native people were cool)

And then the fire nation attacked Spanish came

Or the English

Or the French

Moving to a new culture may result in changes to behaviour and thinking, just exposure to another culture can do the same. This phenomenon whereby people adopt the norms and values of a new culture is known as acculturation. There were four acculturation strategies proposed by researcher Berry that can be used by individuals, they are as follows: assimilation, integration, separation and marginalisation. Assimilation is when an individual abandons their own culture and fully integrates themselves into their new culture, adopting all of its norms and values. Integration talks about wanting to adopt the norms and values of a new culture while still maintaining their original culture. Separation is when migrants fully maintain their own culture and try to minimise contact with the new culture. Finally, marginalisation, where it isn't possible to maintain one's original culture but because of prejudice or discrimination it isn't possible to adopt the new culture.