Self-description(s) and acculturation strategies
Moroccan youth, as meaning-generators subjects, have to self-describe for dealing with their acculturation process. My stance is the following: in order to generate cultural self-models they must choose one of the acculturation strategies proposed by J. Berry: Assimilation is chosen when individuals do not want to maintain their identity and start seeking close interaction with either the host culture, or some other cultures. Separation is the strategy chosen when individuals place a high value on keeping their own culture and avoid interactions with members of the host culture. Integration is the strategy elected when individuals have an interest in maintaining their own culture, but also having interactions with the native group, or with some other groups. Marginalization is defined when there is a lack of interest in cultural maintenance (due to reasons of enforced cultural loss) and little interest in interweaving relationships with others (often is due to reasons of discrimination or exclusion). The four strategies are constantly changing rather than static (Berry, 2011, p. 2.6). Writing further on the matter of identification, I evoke the notion of disidentification, which has to do with the active rejection and distancing of a particular group. It’s an issue that is closely related when the content of one (Muslim) identity is seen as contradictory to that of the other (Basque in this case) (Verkuyten & Yildiz, 2007, p. 1450). A last issue that I want to mention is related with the relationship between acculturation strategies and the perception of discrimination; what I mean is that those individuals who have experienced high discrimination are more likely to prefer separation, whereas those others who have experienced less discrimination prefer integration.
In this research I measured the selection of the acculturation strategies on the basis of the answers that teenagers gave to particular questions concerning the following issues: d) social relations, e) individual construction, f) social constructions and, g) future perspectives. Besides of these questions I considered the length of residence either in Spain, or in the Basque Country. The informants were predisposed to prefer integration rather than the other strategies. Whereas all of them agreed upon the fact that there are traces of discrimination in both the Spanish and the Basque societies, 15 of them showed clear preferences towards integration and better adaptation, while 3 were more oriented towards separation. I must say that neither of them opted for assimilation, but one was swinging between separation and marginalization. Finally, one more fluctuated between separation and disidentification. The 5 informants that were inclined towards some sort of separation have experienced higher levels of discrimination and, even insults and injuries from natives and the police.
On the individual level, acculturation implies that human beings undergo new situations and changes that range from shifts in ways of speaking, dressing, and eating, but also to experience stress, anxiety or depression. Persons who overcome these issues tend to adapt better, therefore to integrate. Individuals who integrate better are prone to balance their maintenance of cultural heritage and identity, as well as the relationships with the host culture. The same happens on the group level, groups who overcome the acculturation process, tend to incorporate better in the host culture, to develop healthy social relationships with other ethnic groups and to exchange cultural texts; therefore they integrate in the host culture (Berry et al., 2006, p. 230).
Additionally, culture shock is a phenomenon that happens during the acculturation process and is experienced by people who spend certain amount of time in a foreign culture, and is caused by confrontations with a different culture. Feichtenger and Fink (1998) have stated that culture shock might be individual or collective. The former taking place on the level of individuals who experience certain feelings such as: uneasiness, psychological and physical problems (depression, stress, helplessness, powerlessness among others). The latter is explained when an abrupt change on the existing social and cultural system takes place. In this manner, this collective cultural shock is not caused by geographical movements abroad, but rather due to internal processes in societies (Feichtinger & Fink, 1998, p. 305). Our informants, as any other immigrant with more than a few months in the host society, experience degrees of individual and collective culture shock.
Rather than consider this process as different, I see culture shock as a necessary phase of acculturation. After the immigration and during acculturation, informants are in constant dialogic processes, having to cope with the amount of information that is constantly received within the intercultural communication with Basques and Spaniards. Consequently, they have to select the information and depurate it to create certain self-models that will transport them to the self-understanding.
My following statement is that immigrant youth generates self-models by means of choosing certain texts from the whole gamut of semiotic resources that have at their disposition. With this I mean certain amount of ethnic choices that help to readjust their identity. One of the most important self-descriptions is to keep performing cultural practices and rituals like Ramadan or Eid-al-Adha[viii] whose development is transformed since it is carried out within an alien semiotic space that is rather secular, instead of traditional. Ronald Ingelhart opposes the traditional dimension of the society to the secular one. The first societies are conceived as societies in which religion is very important, whereas in the second ones, religion is not (Ingelhart, 2008). In both, the transformation implies an inherent alteration in the plane of expression rather than in the plane of content. In Ramadan, a variation happens in the hours for praying and a fracture in the fast, mainly due to the incompatibility of schedules and rhythms in the everyday life of the host society. In Eid-al-Adha the change in the expression plane is more marked because sometimes it might be carried out in quite unusual conditions. As an example, Quran says that all Muslims who can afford it must sacrifice their best domestic animals (usually a cow, but can also be a goat, sheep or ram). In Spain this ritual practice is known as fiesta del cordero (goat’s holiday). Its name comes from the fact that goats are the most typical slaughtered animals, as well as the cheapest ones. This practice implies big gatherings with other Muslims. Our informants, lacking of families, try to gather with other Muslims who can afford it and develop the ritual. These practices are kept in order to attain maximum similarity to the existing culture.