Crossroads: The Psychology of Immigration in the New Century

adaptation: acculturation,
Cultural Identity, and Civic
Engagement
acculturation
Psychological acculturation refers to the dynamic process
that begins when immigrants enter the new country and
begin to adapt to its culture (Berry, 1980). Acculturation 1
is often thought to be a matter of personal choice or
preference (Berry, 1980), but the socioecological context
it occurs in is important to consider. Acculturation
occurs against the backdrop of the local community
of resettlement (Schnittker, 2002) and the immigrant
group’s experience in the larger society (Gibson, 2001).
For example, while some may adopt American culture
quickly, immigrants in large
urban areas with thriving
ethnic communities may
continue to stay connected
to their native cultures (A.
M. Miller, Birman, et al.,
2009). Immigrants of color
in particular may encounter
discrimination that limits
acculturation options.
Immigrants’ age is also an important factor that shapes how
acculturation unfolds. Children learn the new language
and culture relatively quickly, while adults take longer,
having been fully socialized into their heritage culture
prior to migration. Acculturation to the new culture is
particularly slow for immigrants of retirement age (Jang,
Kim, Chiriboga, & King-Kallimanis, 2007; A. M. Miller,
Wang, Szalacha, & Sorokin, 2009). Because such a variety of
personal, community, and societal factors shape individual
immigrants’ cultural experiences, acculturation refers to
more than the mere passage of time in a new country or to
1 The amount of research on acculturation in psychology is large
and growing. A search for acculturat in PsycINFO produced 19,679
entries (15,363 since the year 2000), of which 8,469 were empirical
articles in peer-reviewed journals. However, there is little consistency
in the methods or terminology used in this large volume of literature
(Rudmin, 2003). In reviewing the literature, we have attempted to
clarify the terminology and highlight the complexity of presenting an
integrative summary of findings.
Today’s immigrants may acculturate to
the American culture without severing
their connection to the heritage culture,
and some research suggests that there
are advantages to biculturalism.
one’s generational status (Schwartz, Pantin, Sullivan, Prado, &
Szapocznik, 2006). Rather, there are diverse and multifaceted
ways that immigrants navigate their way through living in a
culture that is different from the one they were born into.
An important distinction has been made in psychology
between acculturation and assimilation. Acculturation has been
defined as a bilinear 2 process occurring with respect to both
the new and the heritage culture. 3 Assimilation, on the other
hand, refers to a particular type of acculturation that involves
adopting the new culture while simultaneously letting go
of attachment to the heritage culture. Early theories of
acculturation assumed that such an either/or acculturation
process was the only possible
and desirable outcome for
immigrants (Stonequist, 1937).
However, today’s immigrants
may acculturate to the
American culture without
severing their connection to
the heritage culture, and some
research suggests that there are advantages to biculturalism
(Berry, 1980; LaFromboise, Coleman, & Gerton, 1993;
Szapocznik, Scopetta, Kurtines, & Aranalde, 1978).
Acculturation is a multidimensional process that involves
changes in many aspects of immigrants’ lives. A number
2 In addition to bilinear, the terms bidimensional (e.g., Ryder,
Alden, & Paulhus, 2000) or orthogonal (Oetting & Beauvais, 1991)
have been used to describe this process.
3 Acculturation to the heritage culture has been sometimes
called enculturation (e.g., N. A. Gonzales, Knight, Birman, & Sirolli,
2004; Yoon, Langrehr, & Ong, 2010). However, in developmental
psychology, enculturation describes a more general process of
socialization that occurs within the child’s cultural context.
Immigrant adults arrive having been fully “enculturated” into their
culture of origin, and for them the term does capture both their
cultural socialization experience and their attachment to their
heritage culture. But for immigrant children, enculturation, or the
process of socialization into the culture and society that surround
them, occurs with respect to both cultures, as the family is embedded
within and is reacting to the host cultural context. Therefore,
to avoid confusion, the term acculturation refers to the process of
affiliation with the heritage culture and is seen as part of the overall
acculturation process that involves balancing affiliation to both.
26 Report of the APA Presidential Task Force on Immigration