Assimilation and Multiculturalism – Culture (SOC)

00:00 So let’s get in to this exact idea of you’ve integrated into another culture.

00:06 One idea to consider is Cultural Assimilation.

00:09 This is the process by which, a person or group’s language and/or culture comes to resemble those of another group.

00:15 So when your culture relates to another culture you will get culture assimilation.

00:21 Okay so my culture, I meet another individual and then to you almost more, if you get this assimilation. Okay.

00:30 So assimilation may involve either a quick or gradual change depending in the host culture and the individual.

00:34 Again moving around, how do you interact with that new culture that host culture? And do you as an individual, do you quickly assimilate and start to pick up the values and tell them align in yours? Is it a marrying the two of them? So it’s a unique process.

00:51 But collectively it’s a changing of your cultural beliefs in assimilating to those of the host country, sorry your host culture.

00:58 Now, full assimilation occurs when the new members of that society become completely indistinguishable from members of the other groups.

01:05 When you can no longer tell, are you new here? Or you must fit in because you belong with everybody here and we can’t even tell that you did not live here or you weren’t born here or born into this culture.

01:17 Now, certain countries on the world are not predominantly of anyone culture or race.

01:25 And we have Multiculturalism. This refers to the inclusion of cultures and ethnicities from all over the place.

01:30 So there’s certain countries were there’s really, really prominent.

01:33 Lot of parts of Europe, Canada, there’s lot of countries around the world where they welcome immigrants and they allow them to come in and have their own cultural identity while the same time sort of mixing their cultures with others.

01:49 So, multiculturalism refers to that inclusion of both your cultural and ethnic norms into one larger broader community.

01:58 So, the issue, I don’t want to say the issue. But the phenomena, multiculturalism has rolled over into now generational changes.

02:09 And what I’m referring to here is, perhaps you’re an immigrant and you’ve migrated to a new host country or new host culture.

02:16 And you’re there a long enough where you now have children that were born into these new culture. Whereas, you came from your previous culture.

02:25 And as that happens, the children of that next generation, they actually inherit their parents culture as well as the culture that they now living.

02:34 And you see this a lot of times in second generation immigrants where the parents are saying, that’s not how we do it in our culture.

02:40 And the child is saying, yeah but mom dad, we don’t live in that old culture anymore.

02:45 We live in these culture. You know, I’m not from where you from.

02:49 I’m from here yet they still kind of follow other cultures that they’re parents brought.

02:54 So there’s this confusion, and there’s this overlay of the two cultures.

03:01 Now, another thing that happens with every subsequent generation is you have the phenomenal cultural delusion.

03:07 And that the parents who are both born and raised in an initial culture when they move to a second and nearer culture they still maintain usually most of their original culture.

03:18 Even though they tried to fit in and assimilate to their new culture, they still maintain a huge substance and values and norms of the original culture.

03:26 Now, the second generation is going to have this like I said combination of the two cultures.

03:32 And when they go on to have children, and so on, and so on, each subsequent generation is gonna have less and less of the original culture that they came from.

03:42 And so, if you look at fourth and fifth and sixth generation, individuals that are in this new culture, they basically have almost none or very little of the original culture better than them.

03:54 Multiculturalism is a good thing in a lot a ways. And some people have issues with multiculturalism on the other hand.

04:02 But we don’t look at some of the impact that it can have on society and our economy.

04:05 So, one thing is in terms of embracing the holidays and celebrations that come what that new culture or that other culture.

04:12 So in a lot of countries like, a lot of countries with in North America, Canada, U.S., even parts of Europe. They embrace that.

04:22 they celebrate things like, Diwali which is the Indian celebration.

04:25 They celebrate Hanukkah. They celebrate the Chinese New Year.

04:29 And these are all embedded into the normal now cultural calendar for that specific culture.

04:34 You’ll also gonna have individuals who have changes in their status, who changes in their passport. They can have dual citizenship.

04:42 So these are differences that will happen due to multiculturalism.

04:45 You have to have a change in your available support programs.

04:49 So if you’re a culture that’s say predominantly English speaking and now all of the sudden you’re allowing in other ethnicities who speak other languages perhaps Muslims or Chinese or Indians.

05:00 You now need to offer all your usual documentation. Getting your driver’s license, applying for passport, for your health programs, schooling.

05:09 These forms can’t be solely in English when some of the immigrants coming in don’t speak that language, that’s not their native tongue.

05:16 You now need to modify and offer support programs that are intended for those who are coming to this new culture.

05:24 And you also have to have some acceptance to the religious culture practices.

05:28 Again, thinking of countries where say Catholicism is the predominant in religion.

05:33 you might have Muslims coming in. You might have other races coming, other cultures coming in that have own places of worship.

05:40 And so they would like to build the mosque or a temple. And do need acceptance of that.

05:45 They need to allow them space and the freedom to be able to do that and express their behavior.

05:50 You know some cultures have individuals praying several times a day.

05:53 They need to have whether needs to be done. And you need to agree upon that and allow that to happen, and all of them have their rights.

06:00 So it’s kind of a unique situation where you’re marrying two cultures.

06:08 The donors bringing their culture into the host culture and so you have to have a combination of allowing them to maintain their culture while prompting them and asking them to also try to embrace the new host culture.

06:25 So subculture is the another phenomena that you’ve heard as well.

06:29 And this refers to a group of people within a broader culture that differentiates themselves from the larger culture to which they origin belong.

06:36 And this is a necessarily that they completely disagree with a broader culture but they feel that their cultural norms and values and beliefs differ enough when they want to create a Subculture, that’s the name.

06:48 So, this can be things like, different types of clothing, style, music.

06:54 You can have the sort of the hippi subculture. You can have the God set culture.

06:58 You can have the break dance through the street. You can have the heavy rockers.

07:02 All of these different subcultures that we have. And then, they don’t necessarily mean that they completely disagree with the broader culture but they want to carve out a little bit of own culture that allows them to express and follow their own values and beliefs.

07:16 Now, the Counterculture is a subculture whose values and norms in behavior differ substantially from those of the mainstream.

07:24 Now these individuals are basically like the name implies going against normal culture.

07:30 And these ones has the potential to be a little bit more disruptive.

07:35 And that they’re because going against the common culture, they typically would like to vocalize that and are contentious against what the primary culture is doing.

07:45 The terms that you might hear sometimes that were going against the man.

07:50 And the man can make me do what I want to do. I have my own sets of beliefs.

07:52 I’m completely standing up against the oppression or the perceive discrimination against my culture. And I am my own counterculture.