Different Culture:
Throughout the semester I
have been spending time and talking to people who come from towns that were
smaller and less diverse than mine. Mostly I looked at towns that were rural,
predominantly white, and had a population of less than 500 people. I learned so
much about how they view themselves as well as others, as well as how they
interact with people who are from more diverse towns or how they think they
interact with people of different races. The towns that I observed, while
demographically similar, had their own culture, and there own views on how they
interact with each other as well as those in more diverse communities, I found
that this difference depended on that towns location to bigger towns such as
Kearney, Grand Island, Lincoln, or Omaha.
Culture Shock and Migrant-Host Relations:
I
choose to look at the movement of people from these smaller towns to a larger
community such as the ones mentioned above. I wanted to see if anyone
experience culture shock and to what extent they experienced it. Remember that
according to Martin and Nakayama culture shock is a relatively short-term
feeling of disorientation and discomfort due to the lack of familiar cues in
the environment. I also interviewed people who had moved to larger more diverse
communities in order to see if they went through migrant-host relations, such
as assimilation, separation integration, or maybe even marginalization.
Field Observations:
The
first part of my field observations happened in Eustis Nebraska and the small
surrounding lake community. Eustis is located south of my hometown of
Lexington, so I figured it would be really interesting to see how this town and
its people were different from those of Lexington. Before going to Eustis I
familiarized myself with some basic information about the town. According to
city-data.com, in 2010 Eustis had a population of 401, and clrsearch.com states
that Eustis has a population that is 97-98% White, with the other 2-3%
categorized as other. The first time that I visited this small town it seemed
that being located so closely to Lexington did make a difference in how they
interact with each other, and those from other communities. While I did observe
that the people of Eustis did live a much slower pace of life. It seemed that
if something didn’t get done today, that was okay because it could always be
done tomorrow. On one occasion I did over hear a couple of older ladies
downtown comment how they had wanted to get a sewing project done, but that
they still had plenty of time to do it, even if they don’t get to it for
another couple of days (Kelsey, Personal Observation, 10/20/12).
I
happen to know a few people who live in Eustis, and when I was home on the
weekend of 10/20/12 I saw them at the Walmart in Lexington. I was curious if
they would act the same in this environment as they do when they are in the
little market in Eustis, to my surprise they seemed to be unfazed by the
cultural differences, and acted just as they do their. While they were faced
with more people of different ethnicities, mostly Hispanic, they still had
their same slow paced demeanor and still talked and acted just as before
(Kelsey, Personal Observation 10/20/12).
Interviews:
The
first young lady I talked to had experienced culture shock, as well as some
migrant-host relations. Growing up Rebecca lived in a small rural community,
where she said she enjoyed the slow pace of life. She recalls that her town was
mostly white. She attended a country school where she was in a class of 7 and
there were only 30 people in the whole school, including the teachers, and they
were all white. She attended this school until she was a 5th grader.
After 5th grade her family moved to larger community and she started
at the public middle school. She recalls her first day of 6th grade,
“I was in complete disbelief and shock”, “I was scared.” (Personal
Communication, 10/5/12). She stated that not only was she shocked by how many
people were in her class, she went from a class of 7 to a class of almost 300,
she said that she was not scared because there were people of different races
but that she was scared because she didn’t know how to communicate with them.
“I had never been around anyone of a different race, or culture so I wasn’t
sure how to talk to them, I was scared to say something that would offend or
upset them.” (Personal Communication, 10/5/12).
The
other person I talked to had a similar experience as the first, the difference
was that he had moved from a large diverse community to a small rural
perdominently white community. My second interviewee had grown up in Omaha
where he attended a large and diverse elementary school. “In the 2nd
grade there was only two kids in my class, me and another girl.” “I never
minded though cause I made friends with anyone who would play with me, they
weren’t that different from me.” He recalls that when he moved to the smaller
town he was shocked to enter his first day at his new school and there were no
children of different races. “I remember asking my teacher if all the kids of
different races were sick or if it was some holiday.” “I was so shocked by how
differently those people acted, and I never did fit in because I never agreed
with how they treated those were not like them.” (Personal communication,
10/18/12). He told me that he always felt separate from the people of his new
town, and that he never fit in because he was unwilling to let go of how he
grew up and the lessons he was taught by his other friends.
References:
Martin, J. N., & Nakayama, T. K.
(2012). Intercultural Communication in Contexts.Chicago: McGraw
Hill.
Internet Chat Interview. 05 2012.
Personal Interview, 10/18/12
Personal Observation, 10/20/12, Eustis Nebraska
