When it comes to dealing with new arrivals either from outside your culture or within your culture, do you tend to try to help them adjust or do you make sly jokes to your friends under your breath.

When they come from your culture, are you embarrassed that they may be projected to be used as a bad example of your culture, or do maybe you feel proud when they are used as a good example(be it stereotype or not) of your culture.

If they dont come from your culture do you conciously make an effort to see that it's just an individual or group of individuals and not representative of a whole culture whether experiences are good or bad?

I always try to help people who are from where i'm from...



and when I see them exhibiting bad behavior..i always pull them to the side and tell them about the differences between the place they just left and the place they are in now.....



I frame the suggestion in a way that let's them know what the repurcussions CAN BE for the behavior or attitude they are showing.....

straight up and 100% honest....in my experience the worst kind of move is when an immigrant from the"country/bush/ mountains" from THEIR country..moves to an urban enviornment in this country.....it woul dhave been culture shock for them to move to the "big city" in their own country....so moving here is culture shock times 1000%........black immigrants I've met from rural regions don't really like following rules and regulations......but person from rural environment....here or somewhere else..may not be used to the "state" regulationg their lives like that....



this leads to many problems.....i think EVERY immigrant group in urban areas should have adjustment/training program for newly arrived immigrants....

people LOVE to take advantage of you in this country if they hear an accent.....there is a tax on being new immigrant....

oh yeah..i also advise all black immigrants to NOT fall for the "oh we like YOU....you're not like those black americans" linethat white people here have used in the past



they can find out on their own what the rationale behind that is....but I try to give them a heads up......

only those who need validation and a pat on the head by whites will fall for such nonsense...it's a trick....

I feel that itis my duty to help those who are from the same country as me especially the elders when they need me. But to be honest, i really dont care about those who are not from the same country/part of the world as me and those who I share nothing with. You know, like a chinese immigrant for example.

But if anybody asks for my help then ofcourse I will not turn them down because of their race/religion/ethnicity. That would be ignorant.

DSP,

Although I have always lived around various cultures of people, but I remembered the first time I ran across some new immigrants non natve speakers, they were from Laos. Although we had diversity, it wasn't like New York or California, where they were better equipped to handle different non-English speakers, so we had to make do. I remembered coming to class and my third grade teaching telling me and the rest of the class that we all had to take turns helping the new Laotian girl learn English. Honestly, I was nervous and a little mad with her. I thought " she's the teacher, she's the one with the masters degree" It wasn't that I was resent ful at the girl( it was the opposite), But to me , it was the teacher's job to help her speak the language more than it was for her students.

Now I look around there are many different people from around the world. Each of them has taught me valuable lesons on handling new immigrants. I remebered some of my Americans telling me( and these we're some White folks telling me this! " Don't trust Russians( when the cold war was out)" Shouldn't that Cuban girl be speaking some English?!"" Or that African lady thinks she more than Americans Blacks?!" I rememebered hearing these remarks from some of them. Some times what people thought was " arrogance" was just people learning what they have learned and have taken with them from their own countries. It's funny, my brother was telling me about a B-day partyfor a 5 year old son of his Ethiopian co-worker/friend. He was stunned to see that not only was he ( an AfricanAmerican) and other one of his co-worker /friend( Vietnamese) being the only no Ethiopians at the party, but he learned that there were no children there.Initially, he couldn't get the absence of children not being there. Although I don't know a lot about Ethiopian tradition, butI had the strangest feeling that it probably was part of thier culture/tradition and I told him that.I was right , his friend told him that they do not celebrate children's b-day parties, like they do in the states.In some ways it's a private affair thatis primarily meant for some family and some trusted friends. My brother and his Vietnamese friend were very honored to know that his Ethiopian friends consodered them to be trusted pals of his.

Th emore I'm around different cultures, the more I get to learn the true sides about them. There is a difference between understanding culture and understanding attitudes. I know that some of them sincerly have problems adjusting to a new culture and I help them the best way that I can, but you just have some who are just plain nasty with people and will cite a culture clash for their attitudes. Nope! I won't tolerate that, just like I wouldn't tolerate poor attitudes with many of my American peers.