Adjustment 

Adjusting to new laws, cultures, and social norms are all a part of the immigration process. However, adjusting to different norms in the day-to-day of life in another country is also a large adjustment. It is easy to overlook the things that immigrants must adjust to upon arrival, such as weather changes, traffic laws, or being without the comforts of home.  Managing these adjustments can be frustrating and confusing all while trying to make a new life in a new country.  To someone who is native to their country, these things might seem small or unnoticeable, but to someone who has never experienced or anticipated them they can be shocking. While researching this, I sought to look for firsthand accounts of what people have experienced with adjusting to the American lifestyle. I came across a blog by Charbel Barker, a woman who emigrated from Mexico to America after marrying her husband. Her blog showcases Mexican dish recipes, as well as travel and lifestyle blogs. In this post she gives advice for how to adjust to American culture for immigrants. The first thing she highlights is realizing that some things will have to be left behind such as lifestyle, family, and weather. She talks about how difficult this was for her in the beginning, saying, “I had to learn the hard way how to leave things behind. On an almost daily basis I found myself crying and saying that I wanted to go back to Mexico.” (Charbel Barker). She also mentions that despite the difficulty with adjusting to America, she learned to embrace a new culture and explore new opportunities. Though exciting things lay before Charbel in America, that didn’t mean that she wouldn’t miss home, and that adjusting to the American lifestyle would not be an emotional journey as well as a physical one. 

After reading about Charbel’s experience with feeling homesick after moving to America, I sought to learn more about the emotional journey of adjusting to a new country. I discovered an article from Caltech talking about the stages of culture shock, which in turn helped me better comprehend the articles I would read talking about people’s emotional experiences with immigration. The article by Caltech categorizes the adjustment process into four stages: the Honeymoon Stage, the Crisis Stage, the Flight Stage, and the Integration Stage. The Honeymoon stage is described as feeling as if you are on vacation upon arrival to your new country. This is usually accompanied by feelings of enthusiasm and curiosity about your new environment. Second is the Crisis stage. After the feeling of vacation fades, hard adjustments have to be made in daily life, such as learning how to speak the language and being without family. Following the Crisis Stage is the flight stage, which is accompanies by a feeling of denial about your new culture. Consequently, you may tend to avoid interaction with others or resist adaptation to culture. The final stage is the Integration Stage. This stage is described as the “balancing out” of the previous stages and developing a more positive outlook on your new environment. You grow towards enjoying the culture of your new country while still holding close to the culture of your home country. This doesn’t mean that the previous stages will not be apparent from time to time, but you’ll feel ready to put yourself out there in society and engage more with others.

After learning about the stages of culture shock, I went back into the First Days Project archive to find an example of these stages taking place. I read about Supriya Ramanathan, a woman who immigrated to America in 1994. She describes her emotions when she first arrived to America were feelings of excitement and happiness. “The first couple of days was just fun, like a vacation. Because I was on my own, it didn't really feel like I had left my country, I just felt I had gone somewhere for a vacation.” However, after a while these feelings started to change into homesickness, which Supriya notes was one of the hardest parts about being an immigrant tin America. “I missed my family a lot, that was the hardest thing. Once the feeling of being on vacation went away, I missed the people that I was used to seeing around me every day.” Supriya’s experiences with immigrating to America closely resemble the Honeymoon and Crisis Stage.