Culture is a unique characterization of people from a certain community or group manifested in their way of life through societal patterns like their belief systems, art, music, cuisines, and law and customs. Every community has a different culture from the next but globalization and technological advancement has made cultural exchange a reality which facilitates the integration of immigrants into their new social environments. Lisa Okafor gives a firsthand account of her cultural integration experience being an immigrant from Nigeria to America. She sheds light on the various cultural distinctions between the Nigerian and the American culture as she narrates her journey of slowly adapting to the American culture while remaining deeply rooted in her African culture and the attitudes of Americans towards Africans in a cultural context. She migrated to the US at the age of twenty four and has been living here for the past one and a half years and is currently pursuing her Master’s Degree in Communications.
The news of the success of her scholarship application met Lisa with mixed feelings since she had never travelled to another African country leave alone to a new continent and she was both elated and nervous at the same time. “I was overjoyed at the opportunity to come to America and pursue my dreams but also scared of being alone so far from home considering I didn’t have any friends or acquaintances before I moved here” recalls a collected and comfortable Lisa (L. Okafor, personal communication, January 28, 2018). She comes from Nigeria a country located in West Africa a country comprised of two hundred and fifty different ethnic communities and she comes from the Igbo ethnic group. On why she chose to leave Nigeria Lisa reiterates that the famous slogan of the American dream and the notion that America is a land of opportunity were inspiring factors since she hopes to find employment and settle down here after completing her studies. “Whenever our history teacher talked about America I always visualized a land of equal opportunities and cultural diversity a place I would definitely love to explore” adds Lisa (L. Okafor, personal communication, January 28, 2018). Her reasons to cross continents were therefore not only academically inspired but she hoped to interact with people from different cultures and see the world.
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Lisa left Nigeria in 2016 at the age of twenty four with the hope of finding greener pastures after struggling to find a job after her undergraduate degree with little luck considering the Nigerian unemployment rate is at 14.2% (L. Okafor, personal communication, January 28, 2018). The Scholarship offer presented an opportunity for her to travel, further her studies and find a job and so she took it without a second thought. The preparation for the trip was both physically and emotionally draining since Lisa had to make sure that she had her travel documents ready, met all travel requirements but the hardest part was saying goodbye to her friends and family. She recalls the experience and reiterates “In the Igbo culture it is customary to inform both the nuclear and extended family and friends of travel arrangements and a going away feast is thrown in your honor” (L. Okafor, personal communication, January 28, 2018). She however made her travel arrangements and landed in the states safely despite the emotional strain of leaving her friends and family and the place she had grown accustomed to since childhood. The hope of providing a better life for her parents and siblings however surpassed her regret of leaving them behind despite the sad looks and tight hugs they all gave her at the airport amidst tears of seeing her go.
Cultural transition proves to be one of the most difficult phases of immigrants everywhere and is characterized by feelings of homesickness, underperformance at work and school, loneliness and isolation and feelings of not fitting in (Kurylo, 2013). For Lisa the experience was no different once she landed in America and the reality that she was continents away from home and all alone hit her hard. She vividly recalls her confusing emotions when the plane landed “To say I was terrified and excited at the same time would be an understatement. I was overwhelmed by the excitement of ticking one thing off my bucket list but terrified of what lay ahead all at once” (L. Okafor, personal communication, January 28, 2018). There are four stages of cultural adjustment which are the honeymoon phase, the culture shock phase, the gradual adjustment phase and finally the adjustment phase.
The first phase is characterized by excitement about interacting with new people, tourism, comparative analysis of the new culture to one’s culture and cultural surprise at all the differences and similarities (Kurylo, 2013). The culture shock phase has the individual focusing on cultural differences, forming stereotypes and generalizations, and experiencing loneliness and homesickness. The third phase is characterized by the stranger slowly relating to the new culture and feeling less foreign among the community they live in and in the final phase they have already got accustomed to the new culture and can blend in without feeling like outsiders (Kurylo, 2013). Lisa’s cultural integration and transition was fast but not smooth given her extroverted personality. Lisa found herself trading her dressing style which would have been considered modest in her culture for the more trendy and chic clothes her schoolmates wore, her taste in music and food changed and her general outlook on life changed (L. Okafor, personal communication, January 28, 2018). She felt freer and at ease with herself but it took months to adapt to the new lifestyle changes.
Lisa’s first impression of Americans was that they were unfriendly, opinionated, loud, arrogant, capitalistic, and she found some of them racist but also optimistic and kind (L. Okafor, personal communication, January 28, 2018). She viewed the United States as the country where every man lives for himself an impression that would fast change when she met her classmates and roommate. She chuckles as she recalls of an incident where a guy on campus approached her and curiously asked if it’s indeed true that they live among animals and walk naked in Africa (L. Okafor, personal communication, January 28, 2018). She was deeply offended at his level of ignorance but as she would later come to learn people’s social conditioning is heavily affected by half-truths and false information circulated by the media and her generalizations about America and Americans was biased and inaccurate. She also noted that there are cultural differences and similarities between the Nigerian and the American culture. Both cultures share cultural values like respect for elders and authority, hard work, kindness and uphold customs and traditions (L. Okafor, personal communication, January 28, 2018). The differences are in the sense of community whereby Nigerians are more communal than Americans, in the mode of dressing, their cuisines, their music and art and in religious and social values.
When winding up the interview Lisa pointed out that her hopes and aspirations on coming to America was to better herself and her family something she has done by pursuing her Master Degree and taking a part time job which enables her to send money back home. Her initial experience of racism and discrimination as a black woman in white dominated institution has since improved as she got to interact with people more and dispel the stereotypes and generalizations she harbored towards them. Although her expectations were over exaggerated she loves living in America and the experience is as good as she imagined if better and looks forward to settling down here and expanding her social circle.
References
Kurylo, A. (2013). Inter/cultural communication: representation and construction of culture . Thousand Oaks: SAGE.
Okafor, L. (2018, January 28). Personal Interview.
