In 2017, the number of immigrants in the United States of America hit a record high of 44.4 million. Putting this figure into perspective Zong, Batalova, and Burrows (2019), report that for every seven U.S. residents, one is an immigrant. Pew Research Center reports that 76 percent of these immigrants are in the country legally as another one-quarter maintain an unlawful stay status (Radford, 2019). Notably, 45 percent of these foreign-born residents were naturalized in 2016. These statistics reveal that the U.S. has the largest population in the world vis-a-vis immigrants. A little scrutiny Radford’s report reveals that 25% or 11.2 million immigrants relocated to America in 2017 alone – making Mexico the single leading country for U.S. immigrant cohort. These trends have won immigration an ever-present status as a current issue in both public and political debate; this paper, too, acknowledges this reality by proposing to investigate the relationship between acculturation and adaptation of immigrants in the U.S. from the perspective of Mexican immigrants.
Research Problem
Immigrants into the U.S. battle to adapt and acculturate to the U.S culture with varied heights of success, leaving scholars wondering how the two concepts interact in the complex process. In theory, a stack difference exists between adaptation and acculturation. The present study recognizes adaptation as when immigrants grow accustomed to and adapt to daily life activities in the U.S. On the other hand, acculturation, synonymized by cultural assimilation, refers the process through which immigrants change their culture when they interact with another culture (Murray et al., 2014). In the context of this study, individuals and of Mexican origin adjust their culture to that of the U.S. Acculturation has evolved from unidimensional assimilation to biculturalism following a heightened interest and extensive inquiry over the 19 th century alone. Even as the knowledge on this phenomenon keeps expanding, its relationship with adaptation remains murky, at best, as the two concepts overlap in practice. Therefore, the present study seeks to determine whether (or not) the success of acculturation hinges on adaptation.
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Importance of the Study
Adaptation and Acculturation are two concepts that have been studied extensively under global immigration. Unfortunately, current knowledge replete with robust empirical evidence is lacking, regarding how the two phenomena relate beyond their theoretical conceptualization. Ideally, sufficient ground exists for believing that acculturation depends on certain factors. For example, while some immigrants find it relatively easy to change their cultures, others take time to navigate the change process. Accordingly, this gap is usually bridged by adaptation.
Conversely, for some immigrants, adapting to a new environment, strangers, as well as unfamiliar practices, jobs or responsibilities remains torturously challenging. This cohort may ameliorate their struggles using acculturation. Thus, the success of acculturation is probably dependent on adaptation. Therefore, this study will use empirical research – using adaptation and acculturation as independent and dependent variables respectively – to determine if this association exists, thereby bridging the current dearth of knowledge.
Sample
Mexican immigrants make a suitable subject for investigating the interdependence (or lack thereof) between acculturation and adaptation. Despite being the majority among immigrants, Mexicans, particularly lawful immigrants, paradoxically show the lowest rate of naturalization. Inquiries into this state of affairs have revealed that some Mexicans deliberately refuse to naturalize primarily due to financial, language, administrative, and personal barriers (Gonzalez-Barrera, 2017). Gonzalez-Barrera’s findings confirm that acculturation is not an easy quest, if it at all is, for many immigrants.
Nonetheless, these challenges are subject to demographic characteristics, demanding increased focus. Besides, the experiences of immigrants in their 20’s or 30’s differ markedly from their older counterparts. Thus, the study sample will comprise first-generation college immigrants of Mexican descent, who have established a continuous residency in America for at least five years.
Methodology
The study will employ the narrative research method. This methodology resonates perfectly with the sample that will be used as the source of primary data necessary to address the research problem. According to Potter (2013), narrative research method offers the opportunity to collect the desired data from immigrants, which in this case will be Mexican immigrants. It allows the researcher to focus on a few individuals, gather data through the stories of these participants, and report individual experiences (Creswell & Poth, 2018, p. 132). Precisely, narrative interviewing will be utilized as the primary method of collecting data. Even though narrative interviews involve prompting by the interviewer, Gilbert and Stoneman (2015, p. 283) recommend it as an effective way of eliciting rich, detailed materials worth using in qualitative analysis. Narratives are also hailed as an excellent way to tackle sensitive topics (Aarikka-Stenroos, 2010), such as the current one; talks regarding acculturation may, for instance, be inundated with undertones of racial prejudices. Additionally, the researcher will use observations, appropriate documents, and other relevant data collection techniques to gain more insight into the physical, emotional, and social situations of Mexican immigrants, focusing mainly on how they have undergone cultural practices values, and identity – and, by implication, the relationship between acculturation and adaptation.
Narrative research method, though highly advantageous given the objectives of the present study, is not void of challenges. The need to collect extensive information on the respondent(s) and the understanding that the researcher requires regarding the context of the participant’s life complicate this approach. As Creswell and Poth (2018) comment, a researcher must possess a keen eye to uncover valuable information from the participants narrative, that will be used to explain the multilayered context of life. In this case, the multifaceted context of life is the unclear relationship between acculturation and adaptation. Another potential challenge is language barrier given that the primary data will be collected directly from immigrants who may not be fluent in English. Creswell and Poth (2018) further cite controversial, and nonetheless pertinent, questions regarding ownership of the story underpinning the narrative. These challenges imply that the study will inevitably be subject to challenges.
Narrative research method attracts some limitations. While every study has their fair share of limitations, this one will suffer some that are imputable to the qualitative research design chosen. For instance, Hazel (2007) contends that the content of narrative research is linguistically subjective. This problem might be exasperated by the fact that the respondent will be an immigrant with radically different personal and political background compared to the researcher. Also, participants may choose to focus solely on horrific experiences or fake the narrative altogether, thus compromising the validity of study outcomes.
NVivo
While some researchers find analysis software, including NVivo less useful in analyzing unstructured data, for instance, others appreciate their ability to alleviate the complexity and complication of the analysis process. The general thrust of literature is against the use of computer software to analyze narrative data. Particularly, Clandinin and Connelly (200), cited in Kim (2016) cautions that extreme caution and adaptation are vital when using these computer programs because the analyses for which they are used are largely paradigmatic, restricted by themes, patterns, and codes. However, the present study will deal with large volume of data in a study limited by time and other constraints, thus necessitating the use of an analysis program. Therefore, NVivo will be used to set cases for the participants and contrast them based on gender, age, length of stay in the U.S., and other relevant themes. The code-and-search feature of the software will make it particularly easy to locate commonalities and differences between accounts and specific quotations in the primary data.
Validity threats in the qualitative design
The researcher will employ appropriate techniques to counter validity threats in the narrative research approach. Several factors may water down the reliability of a study methodology. A researcher should beware of the main threats to validity of qualitative research: descriptive validity, interpretation validity, researcher bias, theory validity, and reactivity (Maxwell, 2012). Accordingly, the researcher will record the entire interviews with utmost accuracy, even describing the environment and actions if necessary. Secondly, observations will be captured as interpreted by the participants, not the researcher. Thirdly, all data will be recorded and presented whether they support or disapprove the hypothesis under evaluation. Finally, the researcher will remain mindful of how their presence influences the environment and the respondents.
Regardless of how excellent the chosen qualitative design might be, it cannot be perfect. Ethical issues will inevitably weigh down its quality considerably. Unfortunately, ethical issues are part of any research, whether conducted by authority figures in a given discipline or a novice (Orb, Eisenhauer, & Wynaden, 2001). Orb and colleagues identify three ethical problems that encompass the study design itself, subjective interpretation of data, and the relationship between researchers and participants. Ethical principles will be used to navigate this tricky part.
While many studies in global immigration have explored adaptation and acculturation, mostly independently, robust empirical evidence is lacking to prove whether the success of acculturation is dependent or independent on adaptation. This paper proposes to employ narrative research to bridge this knowledge deficit. The researcher intends to collect primary data from first-generation Mexican immigrants in college. Given the complexity of this research design, the study will employ NVivo software to analyze data. Besides, the researcher will adhere to the highest ethical standards to mitigate ethical issues and respond to study limitations appropriately. Future studies may advance this discourse by using the same or different research design on a different immigrant group to investigate how acculturation and adaptation interact.
References
Aarikka-Stenroos, L. (2010). The contribution and challenges of narrative data in interorganizational research. In Proceedings of the 26th International IMP Conference, Budapest, Hungary .
Creswell, J. W., & Poth, C. N. (2017). Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing Among Five Approaches (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Gilbert, N., & Stoneman, P. (Eds.). (2015). Researching social life . Sage.
Gonzalez-Barrera, A. (2017, June 29). Why Mexicans have not become American citizens . Retrieved June 14, 2019, from https://www.pewhispanic.org/2017/06/29/why-mexican-lawful-immigrants-have-not-naturalized/
Hazel, P. (2007). Narrative: An Introduction. Unpublished . Accessed from https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Paul_Hazel/publication/228488063_Narrative_An_Introduction/links/57caeda608ae89cd1e844e5d/Narrative-An-Introduction.pdf
Kim, J. H. (2016). Narrative data analysis and interpretation: Flirting with data. Understanding Narrative Inquiry, edited by J Kim , 185-224.
Maxwell, J. A. (2012). Qualitative research design: An interactive approach (Vol. 41). Sage publications.
Murray, K. E., Klonoff, E. A., Garcini, L. M., Ullman, J. B., Wall, T. L., & Myers, M. G. (2014). Assessing acculturation over time: A four-year prospective study of Asian American young adults. Asian American journal of psychology , 5 (3), 252.
Orb, A., Eisenhauer, L., & Wynaden, D. (2001). Ethics in qualitative research. Journal of nursing scholarship , 33 (1), 93-96.
Radford, J. (2019, June 3). Key findings about U.S. immigrants . Retrieved from https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/03/key-findings-about-u-s-immigrants/
Zong, J., Batalova, J., & Burrows, M. (2019, April 15). Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration in the United States . Retrieved June 14, 2019, from https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested-statistics-immigrants-and-immigration-united-states
