Acculturation of host individuals: Immigrants and personal networks

1 Running head: ACCULTURATION & PERSONAL NETWORKS Acculturation of Host Individuals: Immigrants and Personal Networks Silvia Domínguez Northeastern University (Boston, MA) & Isidro Maya-Jariego Universidad de Sevilla (Spain) Contact information: Silvia Dominguez, Sociology and Anthropology, Northeastern University. Holmes 525. 350 Huntington Ave, Boston 02115. s.domingue[email protected] Isidro Maya-Jariego, Departamento de Psicología Social, Universidad de Sevilla, Calle Camilo José Cela s/n. 41.018 Sevilla (Spain). E-mail: [email protected] 2 Abstract There has been a vast amount of research on the changes experienced by immigrants, but little is known about the changes experienced by host individuals. This article focuses on the role of host individuals in the networks of relations between immigrant populations and the communities from the dominant culture, as well as the changes experienced by host individuals because of the continuous contact with immigrants. This research applied a network approach to the study of the acculturation of host individuals. Two independent studies were carried out: a systematic analysis of the personal networks of Argentinean (n = 67), Ecuadorian (n = 59), Italian (n = 37) and German (n = 37) residents in Seville and Cadiz (Spain) (Study 1); and an ethnographic study with human service workers for Latin American immigrant in Boston (USA) (Study 2). With two different strategies, the role of host individuals in personal networks of foreigners in the United States and Spain was analyzed. The results show that host individuals tend to have less centrality than compatriots, showing an overall secondary role in the personal networks of immigrants. The lowest average centrality was observed in recent and temporal migrants, whereas the highest corresponded to the individuals with more time of residence in Spain. The personal networks of human service providers in USA vary in ethnic composition and in their structural properties, and therefore shape different types of integrative bridges for immigrants. Key words: Acculturation, Immigrants, Host Society, Personal networks. 3 The acculturation literature has evolved from a unidimensional model to bidimensional models (Berry, 1997, 1998). According to the unidimensional model, acculturation can be conceptualized as movements along a continuum “ranging from the immersion in one’s culture of origin to the immersion in the dominant or host culture” (Cabassa, 2003, p. 132). Unidimensional frameworks assume that the acculturating group has no effect on the dominant culture (Ibid.). The unidimensional model is associated with the “melting pot” view of immigrant integration, based on assimilation theories. Past generations of immigrants are thought to have become successful by shedding their own ethnic and cultural background and adopting the ethnicity and culture in the host society. This was largely the case with immigrants coming from Northern Europe whose culture closely resembled the Anglo-Saxon Protestant culture of the United States. Problems with assimilation began to emerge once Irish and Italian immigrants became subjects of discrimination. Although similar to the receiving population in many ways, including skin color and western European heritage, their Catholic religion and distinctive Mediterranean culture (in the case of Italians) became significant barriers to their assimilation (Aguirre & Turner, 2004). As cross-cultural psychology discovered that third generation European immigrants had identity problems and mourned the loss of their grandparents’ culture (McGoldrick et al., 1983), it became clear that assimilation as a theory and value could be problematic even where apparently successful. Thus, assimilation has been displaced by pluralism: immigrant groups could retain aspects of their ethnicity while participating in the mainstream culture (Adams & Strother-Adams, 2001). Pluralism is consistent with the bidimensional model of acculturation, which allows for the maintenance of the original culture and adherence to the culture of the host society. In this context the acculturation has been defined as a process of mutual change of individuals and groups of different cultures that come into continuous contact (Berry, 1986, 1997, 1998; Berry & Sam, 1996; Redfield, Linton, & Herkovits, 1936). There has been a vast 4 amount of research on the changes experienced by immigrants (e. g., Birman, 1998; Birman, Trickett & Buchanan, 2005; Birman, Trickett, & Vinokurov, 2002; Cea et al., 2004; Samaniego & Gonzales, 1999; Shen & Takeuchi, 2001, Vega et al., 1993), but little is known about the changes experienced by host individuals. This article focuses on the role of host individuals in the networks of relations between immigrant populations and the communities from the dominant culture, as well as the changes experienced by host individuals because of the continuous contact with immigrants. First, we analyzed the sociometric role of host individuals in the personal networks of immigrants through a survey with four groups of foreigners living in Spain. Second, we describe the process of acculturation of several human service workers with immigrants, as part of a wider ethnography of Latin-American women living in Boston (USA). A network approach in the study of acculturation Social Network Analysis (SNA) has been recommended as a useful tool to address contextual questions in community science (Luke, 2005). It is a broad set of methods, based on relational data, which represent the connections among a set of actors, for the systematic study of social structure. Network methods are useful to analyze the multiple levels of a community, and to describe the relations between a community and its immediate surrounding context. In this sense, it allows to give account of common but frequently neglected phenomenon, as the existence of overlapping communities or sub-communities, and the experience of multiple belongings (Berger & Neuhaus, 1977; Maya-Jariego, 2004; Zimmerman, 2000). SNA may be applied to whole or ego-centric networks. A personal network is a special type of social network that is centered on one person, and describes his or her links to other people. The tradition of social support studies has usually focused on the core component of the personal network, describing the composition and characteristics of around 10 key members. This information has normally been processed as variables that describe the 5 relationships of the respondent. Christopher McCarty (2002) has recommended analyzing a higher number of alteri and, at the same time, to apply the structural analyses that have been traditionally used on whole (sociocentric) network data. The utility of this approach is to avoid the limitation of the analysis to the strongest ties, and to allow the study of the structural properties of the personal network. This approach is also useful for the analysis of the process of acculturation of immigrants and the host individuals that are in continuous contacts with them (McCarty & Molina, 2003). Current methods of assessing acculturation are based on psychometric scales that focus on individual adaptation to specific cultural contexts. Such instruments are very useful to understand how migrants adapt to the new society. A SNA approach, focused on the interactions of immigrants with other individuals (compatriots or not), provides a new way to compare patterns of acculturation (McCarty & Wutich, 2003). The interaction between migrants and the individuals of the host society is one of the key elements in the acquisition of new attitudes and behaviors. Measuring differences in the structure, intensity and content of that interaction allows us to interpret the extent to which migrants’ attitudes, and behaviors change over time. Therefore, acculturation may be analyzed through the changes in the structure, composition and functionality of the personal networks of immigrants. SNA also provides some perspective on members of the host culture most likely to be influenced themselves by immigration, the subject of our second study. Migration has been characterized as an ecological transition (Bronfenbrenner, 1977). The description of the changes in the personal networks of immigrants is a contrasted useful strategy to analyze the psychological adaptation to a new country. For instance, we have built a typology of personal networks as a proxy to the psychological adaptation of immigrants (Maya-Jariego, 2003a). The consideration of differential network constellations is an efficient measure in that it is at once comprehensive and parsimonious. In several studies with African and Latin-American immigrants in Spain and Indian immigrants in Argentina, we have 6 observed that family reunification and the incorporation of host individuals are two basic strategies to rebuild personal networks in the host society, with clear consequences in the functionality of the support structure (Maya-Jariego, 2006). Acculturation alters the composition of the personal network by increasing its heterogeneity, while it also affects the level of structural cohesion, since well-defined groups of players –e. g. compatriots, well connected among them, versus host individualsappear more frequently. All of these changes lead to reorganization in the distribution of support and leverage functions (Maya-Jariego, 2006). The interaction provokes changes in the behaviors and attitudes of members of the host population as well, that can be analyzed with the same approach. The observation and analysis of the personal networks of immigrants may be a tool for screening and examining the part of the host population that are in frequent contact with foreigners. On the other hand, extending the same argument for immigrants, the heterogeneity, structural cohesion, and support functions of host individuals’ personal networks is also a tool to describe the acculturation of the dominant culture members. This doesn’t mean to discard a population survey approach or other research techniques, but it is a first step to analyze –applying SNA- in a mixed method approach, the impact of acculturation on the host population. In this article we report the results of two independent studies: a systematic analysis of the personal networks of Argentinean, Ecuadorian, Italian and German residents in Seville and Cádiz (Spain) (Study 1); and an ethnographic study of human service providers working with Latin American immigrant women in Boston (USA) (Study 2). With both studies we compare personal networks of immigrants and hosts that work with immigrants in two different contexts, through qualitative and quantitative methods. The analysis of host individuals’ sociometric position in the personal networks of immigrants (in the Study 1) and the development of a typology describing the personal networks, attitudes and behaviors of 7 host individuals (in the Study 2) provides a complementary network-based description of the acculturation of dominant culture members, examining both sides of the inter-group contact. STUDY 1. BRIDGES TOWARDS THE WHOLE COMMUNITY: THE ROLE OF HOST INDIVIDUALS IN THE PERSONAL NETWORKS OF FOREIGNERS IN SPAIN Acculturation varies according to the levels and formats of contact between immigrants and host individuals. It is not easy to locate host culture members that are experiencing an active process of acculturation, as a consequence of frequent contact with immigrants. In this article we follow two approaches to identify host individuals experiencing acculturation. In the first study, the personal networks of immigrants are examined as a way to screening Spaniards, that is to say, members of the receiving country. This indirect approach allows the assessment of who are the Spaniards with a more active contact with immigrants, and how the former are integrated in the personal networks of the foreigners. In the second study, several American human service providers were interviewed. As far as they work with Latin-American population, this is a direct approach to identify host individuals experiencing acculturation. The immigrants in the host society make up a minority-majority situation. This intergroup relationship delineates several possibilities for contact. For instance, an immigrant may be well connected inside his or her own group; but may be also in a frontier situation (distributing links with both groups) or inserted into the local networks. The inverse situation is the case for host individuals. We apply two different and complementary approaches in both studies, which allow taking into account both perspectives in the inter-group relationship. The analysis of the personal networks of immigrants in the first study is an indirect approach to researching the acculturation of host individuals. However, to get information from a sample of immigrants make possible to find different acculturation experiences in host individuals (since we are following a population approach). This approach is probably also 8 less affected by social desirability, as is the case when host respondents are reporting on the contacts that they have with minority groups. On the other hand, personal network analysis is a way to analyze the relationship between host individuals in the context of the personal environment of immigrants. Finally, it provides also information on the level of social assimilation of relocated people, giving again a context to interpret the acculturation experiences of host individuals. In sum, the diversity of patterns of interactions can be described through the specific role that the dominant culture members play for different relocated individuals. Furthermore, this may be a proxy for analyzing the position of the immigrants in the wider social structure. The aim of this first study was to compare the differences in the sociometric properties of compatriots and non-compatriots in the personal networks of immigrants and, second, to identify the various roles of host individuals. Method Participants Participants of the first study were 200 foreigners residing in Spain. They were from Argentina, n = 67; Ecuador, n = 59; Germany, n = 37; and Italy, n = 37. The age range was 16 to 60 years with a mean of 36.37 (SD = 9.93); with 79 males and 121 females. The average of years living in Spain is 4.66. Most of them are recent migrants, with a small sub-sample of students that will stay only for a short period in Spain. Measures and procedure The Arizona Social Support Interview Scale (ASSIS) (Barrera, 1980) was applied to obtain a list and characteristics of support providers. After obtaining a list of support providers with ASSIS, the respondents were asked to complete the list with “five other contacts that are also important for you”. Then a matrix of n x n actors was built, in which the respondent codified each pair from 0, “no relationship”, to 2, “very related”. The matrix was 9 computed with UCINET 6.0 (Borgatti, Everett, & Freeman, 2002) and average centrality measures of each network were derived. The information was entered and computed as attributive data with SPSS 13.0. To have a more ample description of the procedure and a clearer distinction between the social support variables and the personal network structural properties, see Maya-Jariego and Holgado (2005). Centrality is a measure of how connected the node is to other nodes within the network. Degree is the number of direct ties for each node. Closeness for a node is the inverse of the sum of all distances to all other nodes. A single alter is highly close if they are connected by short paths to many other alters. Degree and Closeness measures tend to be strongly correlated. Betweenness is the number of shortest paths between all alters that a node lies upon. For a more detailed treatment of centrality measures and their computation, see Faust and Wasserman (1999). In this study we consider the average centrality of all nodes in the personal network, taking into account the three measures of centrality mentioned above. The original 12 items version of the SCI by McMillan and Chavis (1986) was applied, with a Likert-type scale ranging from 1, strongly disagree, to 4, strongly agree. The SCI is an adequate, widely used and sound measure of overall Psychological Sense of Community (PSOC), with items that refer to Membership, Influence, Emotional Connection and Needs Fulfillment (Chipuer & Pretty, 1999; Obst & White, 2004, 2005). The respondents informed of PSOC with three different communities: (a) the Neighborhood where they live in Spain, (b) the former Neighborhood in the home country and (c) the relational community with fellow compatriots in Spain. The Cronbach’s alpha reliability estimates were moderately high for the three scales (with, respectively, .66, .79 and .81 coefficients). The reliability was also pretty similar in the four immigrant sub-samples (.70 - .83 in Ecuadorians, .65 - .82 in Argentineans, .63 - .77 in Germans and .70 - .86 in Italians). Figure 1 is an example of the personal network of an Ecuadorian Immigrant living in Seville, derived through this procedure. She mentioned 24 alteri, 18 Ecuadorians (white 16 interchange occurs where culture is converging (Alba and Nee, 2003). Human service providers (HSP’s) that work with immigrants constitute an interface between converging cultures. HSP’s play an important role in community networks: In the classic studies by Stanley Milgram on the acquaintanceship chains, most of the brokers between ethnic communities were those with a professional role (Korte & Milgram, 1970; see also, Maya Jariego, 2003b). The role of HSP’s is characterized mainly by the fact that they are sometimes between the networks of the minority groups and the wider community. Many of these professionals can be defined as “integrative bridges,” (IB’s): individuals who catalyze the integration of two dissimilar populations (Dominguez, 2005). This part of the study focuses on how HSP’s who are members of the dominant culture (European -Americans) are culturally influenced by the immigrants with whom they work. The objective is to understand how their exposure to Latin-American immigrants influences their values, attitudes, language, behavior and interpersonal relationships. The ethnographic data was collected as part of the Welfare, Children and Families Three-City Study and was complemented with a second wave ethnographic field research. The Three-City Study examined work, welfare, family, money, intimate relationships, and social networks in the lives of low-income families, as well as the institutional resources available to them at the neighborhood level, in Boston, Chicago, and San Antonio. Participant-observation and longitudinal ethnographic interviews were conducted during 1999-2002 with women living in public housing in South and East Boston. Fieldwork in these neighborhoods focused on access to services, attending meetings and events and interviewing neighborhood informants. Several HSP’s were interviewed and a degree of acculturation of the Latin culture of their clients was evidenced by their abilities to work with immigrants and statements they made about their work. The interviews and observations were documented in field notes and analyzed with QSR N6, and a coding scheme was developed 17 that accounted for the different types of social service providers and different types of bridges. This modified grounded theory approach incorporates codes that are based on existing literature as well as codes derived inductively (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Glaser, 1992). It included codes for experiences and codes for meanings and interpretations of experiences. Integrative bridges and religious based motivators for work with immigrants emerged early in the analysis. The analysis presented here highlights the acculturation of the host society through its members’ contact with immigrants. The second wave of data collection was done in the summer of 2006 with a return to some respondents to complete missing information and interview several other HSP’s with IRB approval and after signing consents. The respondents were interviewed for three hours covering the following themes: role and length of work with immigrants; background information and motivation for working with immigrants; how they have changed and the type of changes experienced since they began working with immigrants; and who the closest people to them were and what their cultural background was. A social network grid was filled out with the names, types of relationships, age, ethnicity of tie, length of connection, function and who knew who in the list. Because ethnographic methods include participant observation in the study respondent’s lives and their neighborhoods as well as interviews, they provide a multifaceted lens that is ideally suited to investigate a typology with both subjective and objective dimensions (Purvin, 2007). The longitudinal ethnographic fieldwork made apparent the acculturation of HSP’s working with the Latin-American immigrants allowing a further exploration through a second round of interviews with a specific focus. The goal of the qualitative study was to add to existing theories and reconstruct them by looking at the ways in which host individuals are influenced by their work and exposure to immigrants (Burawoy, 1991). In terms of methodological limitations, data are based on the experiences of 10 HSP’s. Nevertheless, the strength of longitudinal ethnographic interviews is that information not intended surfaces 18 naturally. Because the respondents were not randomly selected, they are not representative of the city’s overall HSP population. The study explores how the society is changing through immigration by focusing on host individuals. Nevertheless, these HSP’s share many of the demographic characteristics of many others and are, therefore, not anomalous cases. The participants in this study are ten HSP’s, nine women and one man. As Table 6 shows, three (Sherry, Dianne and Sandra) worked as ESL instructors and the others in political building and integration (Carol, Susan, Sister Magdalena, Father Murphy, Antonia, Mary, and Ruth). By focusing on their level of acculturation, this study is concerned with a side of acculturation and immigration that has largely been neglected (Cabassa, 2003). The acculturation typology derived from the data is based on the way that the respondents indicated having been changed because of their exposure to Latin-American immigrants. [TABLE 6 HERE] Towards a Typology of Acculturation of Host Individuals We found that the level of acculturation depended on the amount of exposure to Latin- American culture each host member in the sample experienced. Therefore, the typology flows along a continuum of exposure from temporary to immersion. Travelers are those temporarily exposed to Latin-American culture. Frontier Brokers are constantly exposed to Latin- American culture, and Residents are immersed in Latin-American culture. Each type differs along a progressive continuum of changes in values, attitudes, language, behavior and interpersonal relationships. The changes evident in Travelers are cumulative with additional changes being added as evidenced for the Frontier Brokers and finally, the Residents. Travelers The majority of hosts in this study are travelers. Travelers include two ESL instructors, Sherry and Sandra and three HSP’s, Ruth, Antonia and Mary. These individuals maintain the Latin-American immigrants at a distance. They visit the Latin-American culture but always temporarily. Travelers evidence changes in attitude, behavior and, to certain degree, values 19 but do not manifest changes in language nor interpersonal relationships. International experience is in the background of Sherry and Sandra who attribute that experience to changes in attitude and wanting to work with immigrants. Sandra has been working with immigrants for eleven years. She spent six months in England when in college and she says, “It was an eye-opening experience for me… to live in another country. The way you think that things are done in this country is the way things are done in other places… is just not true.” Sherry who has been teaching ESL for 25 years also evidenced this change in attitude about cultural differences and immigration. Sherry grew up in Europe, mostly in England but also remembers her United States born mother being discriminated against and devalued in Germany. Sherry brought up this story when asked about experiences that made her want to work with immigrants. When I was 10 or so, I went shopping with my mother to the butcher… I was the interpreter for some meat and when we left, two adults said, ‘isn’t a shame, that little girls’ mother is so stupid’. From then on, I refused to tell my mother to come to school… I refused to tell her anything about school because I didn’t want her to embarrass me by coming to school. It wasn’t until I was twelve that I realized that my mother wasn’t stupid. That she was Pre-med in the United States. She just was slow picking up German. But I believed that adults told the truth. Her story is not unlike so many immigrant children’s stories who hear members of the dominant culture speak in demeaning ways about their mothers and fathers or other relatives and this causes them to be ashamed of them and of their culture of origin (Ramirez, 1999). This type of shame causes individuals to internalize oppression about their culture, impedes the successful integration of bicultural identities and has ramifications for partaking in risky behaviors that can reduce life chances in the second generation of immigrants (Portes and Rumbaut, 2001). While this shame did affect Sherry’s development, it gives her an appreciation for the struggle of immigrants and is part of her motivation for the work she performs as an ESL instructor and counselor and the positive attitude about immigrants she manifests. Sherry sees cultural differences as assets, not weaknesses and this has allowed her to identify clearly the types of cultural values she most appreciates in the Latin-American 20 culture (Saleebey, 1992). Sherry is “amazed” at how “resourceful Latin-Americans are in garnishing social support.” She attributes this to valuing “interdependence as opposed to independence” and the “collective as opposed to the individual” in the US. Sherry has also become increasingly sensitive to the “value of legal documentation in accessing services and rights” and the “courage” that it takes to immigrate...particularly women with children.” The cultural values Sherry identified as wanting to adopt “as soon as someone gives me grandchildren, include the way that she sees that Latin-American families “express love”. The other thing that I’ve listened to how moms, all babies are called “mi amor”. I have never met a baby that’s called my it’s name. It’s always, “mi amor, mi amor, mi amor” and now I’m much more aware of children’s, how parents, how Latino parents respond to children, the names they call them. I can’t wait to be a grandmother, one of these days someone is going to have to give me a grandchild because I've just watched how they treat their children and it’s kinda nice. Sandra credited her work with Latin-American immigrants as having made her more aware of the “immigrants’ struggle”. “It’s humbling in a way to see what some of these people go through in terms of working two jobs and raising families and still taking the time to come to school and learn English and try to improve their lives here.” Sandra also credits her work as having made her feel more comfortable with cultural differences. “I feel like the more exposure people have to immigrants the more aware you are of cultural differences and understanding differences and maybe… be less threatened by differences.” Neighborhood historical dynamics account for Mary, Antonia and Ruth’s motivations to work with immigrants. Mary and Antonia are service providers in East Boston, a transitional, receiving neighborhood for immigrants that is undergoing a demographic shift from Italian-Americans to Latin-Americans (Domínguez, 2005, 2008). Mary had been working at the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) office for close to 10 years and when asked about her motivation for working with Latin-Americans, she explained, “You know…as an immigrant myself, the grand-daughter of proud Italian parents…I can’t 21 discriminate against immigrants. Not only that, we have a duty to help them and I can’t feel good with myself if I do not.” The neighborhood history was fundamental in Antonia’s motivation to work with Latin-American immigrants as well. Antonia explained that, I think that one of the big factors is that we have an island past. East Boston was made up of five Islands you know? So we have an ‘island mentality’…. This means that we take care of our own...I have worked for years in service organizations which are always in a crisis mode because of the low-education status and loweconomic status of immigrants arriving all the time… Ruth is also a traveler with a neighborhood-based consciousness as resident of South Boston, which is historically an Irish-American defended neighborhood. This area is well known for having reacted violently against minorities in school and housing integration. Ruth is conscious of the need to help minorities being integrated into their public housing developments who are largely Latin-American immigrants (Dominguez, 2005, 2008). Like Antonia and Mary, Ruth is a native of this neighborhood and knows its culture and racial dynamics well. The racial strife caused Ruth to change her attitude about immigrants and begin to work connecting them to services. “It is very hard here for outsiders so they have to struggle even more and they deserve and need to be included.” The relationship between travelers and immigrants is that of teacher and student and it manifests a power differential. This power differential maintains distance between the two and creates boundaries that are formally enforced. The power differential within the ESL instructors and the majority /minority relations based on ethnic identity in East and South Boston is not conducive to the development of substantive friendships with immigrants. In fact, in close-knit communities like defended neighborhoods, networks tend to manifest the “strength of strong ties” that lead to a form of “bounded solidarity” and “enforceable trust” which can restrict and control members of that community’s relationships (Lin, Ensel, & Vaughn, 1981; Portes, 1995; Portes & Sensebrenner, 1993). Nevertheless, Travelers have an 22 increased social sensitivity that changes their attitudes about immigrants and they exhibit value adoption and behavior change as in the case of Sherry. Frontier brokers Frontier Brokers are HSP’s that stand between two cultures. All the Frontier Brokers made comments related to their moral imperatives based on social justice and life abroad which gave them an understanding of immigrant experiences. In this sample, religion was the basis for Father Murphy, and Sister Magdalena, who were actively practicing according to their Catholic belief system, and Carol, who was previously a nun. Religion is known as a carrier of values and motivations behind altruism (Praetorius & Machtmes, 2005). These integrative bridges are what Bochner called “mediating persons, persons who have the ability to act as links between different cultural systems… by introducing, translating, representing and reconciling the cultures to each other” (Bochner, 1982, p. 29). In particular, Father Murphy, Sister Magdalena, and Carol’s work was influenced by Catholic based Liberation Theology, which inflicted them with a social consciousness about inequality and focused their practice towards social justice. Father Murphy was the pastor in East Boston. Situated across from a public housing development in the middle of a Latin- American immigrant enclave, he had developed a number of social programs associated with his church, including a domestic abuse shelter and an employment center. Father Murphy was highly trusted by the population and was able to carry out a domestic abuse shelter in the context of a close-knit immigrant community. Sister Magdalena was an HSP in a religiousbased social services agency in South Boston. She worked hard integrating Latin-Americans who lived in public housing into the services available in the larger neighborhood dominated by Irish-Americans. During her time in Chile, Carol stopped her affiliation to a religious order and came out as a lesbian. Since the 1980’s Carol worked integrating Latin-American immigrants in a well-known organization in East Boston. All three Frontier Brokers had spent several years in Latin America and manifested changes in values, attitudes, and behavior. 23 They had become fluent in Spanish but had only minimal changes in their social networks. When asked about experiences that led her to work with immigrants, Sr. Magdalena responded, I think that the years I lived in Bolivia I had a sense of how it felt to be an immigrant… and you know that I grew up in Charlestown, so I know what these folks are like here in South Boston. I used to run a support group for wives of Southie men who were not from South Boston. This just tells you what the implications are for minorities here. I know that South Boston is resource rich and my job is to get Latinos to those resources. Frontier Brokers, Father Murphy, Sister Magdalena and Carol had fully incorporated aspects of the Latin-American culture and as such, they were bilingual and bicultural. While bilingualism implies having the ability to use two languages with similar fluidity, bicultural implies being experienced in two cultures which are used in some blended form for the most part while using more of one culture base over another when situations call for it as in codeswitching (Zentella, 1990). It is widely accepted that in order to work with immigrants, one must be bilingual and bicultural to adequately address their needs. A lack of choice in such providers also limits access to services for Latin-American immigrants (Domínguez & Watkins, 2003). A whole field in psychology, social work and psychiatry has risen around the idea of cultural competence as a necessary step to reduce health disparities existing between majority and minority communities (Benjamin, 1993). As HSP’s, Fr Murphy, Sister Magdalena and Carol were extremely effective in their dealings with Latin-American immigrants because they were culturally knowledgeable, flexible and class conscious. Sister Magdalena provided mental health and community building services as the only Spanish-speaking provider working with the Latin-American immigrant families in public housing in South Boston. During our conversations, she discussed many issues that concerned her that manifested her sophistication differentiating structural problems from cultural ones among the Latin-American families she served. She worried about the plight of Latin- American girls, how families used them to help with family duties in ways that did not allow 24 them time to focus on school. Her way of intervening was culturally responsive by not “tackling this straight with the families but instead I put the information into play at the parenting classes I give.” Carol verbalized very clearly, what she had “gained” working with immigrants. She spoke about her work as helping her to “keep her privilege in check”, the understanding that “respect” was necessary when dealing and interacting with immigrants who she views as needing to be “treated with dignity”. Well I think that I’m constantly reminded that it’s easy to take life as one knows it for granted. Um it’s very… I work with people everyday who don’t have health insurance, who maybe have to work 2 jobs. Their kids look like they might be joining gangs, who can’t go back to their home countries when a parent dies. Those are all constraints that people have. All of those things that I have and I could easily take those for granted if I weren’t reminded on a daily basis that these aren’t things that many people have because they need them…. Respect, I think it’s very important that people have a place where they can go where they know their experience is gonna be… even if we have to tell them really hard stuff, everything’s done with dignity. Carol also expressed her integrated political beliefs and becoming collective in her thinking when analyzing the consequences of political decisions on the immigrants she serves. Among the bridges concerned with and motivated by social justice, they shared a political consciousness. Um, you know on a more analytical level. I think the analysis I do around politics has always reflected off what’s going to happen to that group of people that I work with. It’s not just about what’s going to happen to me or what’s going to happen to my kids and grandkids. What’s going to happen, you know, decisions that are made in Congress, so I everything that happens, you know, I look through it with that set of eyes. Which, I probably would not do if I didn’t work with immigrants. Frontier Brokers have lived in Latin America and have worked with immigrants constantly for several years. They have achieved increased sensitivity regarding the plight of immigrants as evidenced by their work to help and incorporate immigrants. They are bilingual, and they have incorporated values and behaviors associated with a substantial understanding of Latin-American culture that allows them to be extremely effective in the work they do. All 25 this involvement and exposure makes incorporation of immigrants into their own personal networks expected. Such change would reflect the most influence achieved by immigrants into a representative of the dominant culture. Yet, when doing social network inventories, it became clear that their social relationships consist of other individuals with shared traits (religious and/or sexual). Taking a closer look at Carol’s social network map (Figure 2), we can see that she has several long-term relationships with others who share her minority sexual orientation status. Despite working with Latin-American immigrants constantly, she only has one immigrant tie, Ana (Black node), who also shares Carol’s minority homosexual status. [FIGURE 2 HERE] Figure 2 demonstrates Carol’s strong ties, defined as ties that offer emotional and instrumental support and who are seen frequently. The diagram shows that despite Carol’s bilingualism and biculturalism and her work with immigrants over 20 years, she has only one immigrant in her network of close ties. Ana is a lesbian from Chile, who is primarily connected to members of Carol’s household, Mary, Ishia and Julie, but she also has a strong relationship with Alice, one of Carol’s close friends. As such, Ana is integrated into Carol’s family life but not substantially to the rest of Carol’s Euro-American support network. Carol also has strong ties that share her interests. Martha, Alice, Fred and Joseph are friends known close to 20 years brought together over a love of books. “Basically, it’s kind of a group of some of us who worked together before and we get together monthly because otherwise we’d just never see each other.” As Carol explained when talking about her social support network, “as a lesbian in a relationship, I need to surround myself with others that are supportive.” As the diagram shows, there are close relationships lasting decades with Kathy and Calvin, and Kim and Anita who are two lesbian couples and Tom and Allen, a gay couple. Carol has gravitated towards others that share the same social identity as homosexuals. In addition, Carol works long hours and her availability for socializing is very limited. When asked about the lack of immigrants among her strong ties, Carol explains, “It is really a matter 32 with immigrants are being acculturated. The way in which AA’s are being acculturated is of particular interest. Segregation and discrimination not only has reduced low income AA’s networks of the support and leverage needed to getting ahead in concentrated areas of poverty, it has also lessened their ability to show self-propelling agency at the individual level. Thus it is of utmost importance to identify the ways in which AA’s are being positively acculturated by the newcomers. Once these mechanisms of positive acculturation had been identified, they could be employed to implement interventions aimed at kindling the re-incorporation of AA’s into the dynamics of social mobility. Such interventions would constitute an example of fostering diversity as a mechanism to address social problems through the targeted injection of buffering immigrant groups in otherwise bi-racially homogeneous communities (Dominguez, 2008). The examination of personal networks reveals (a) the disposition of migrants and host individuals for making new contacts, (b) the acculturative potential of inter-group contacts for both sides, and (c) the potential contribution of host individuals to the social integration of immigrants. For instance, host individuals may have more or less cohesive personal networks and, in consequence, be more or less prone to incorporating minority members into their pool of social ties. On the other hand, the acculturation of host society members occurs within the context of the process of adaptation of immigrants. Recently arrived foreigners are usually oriented towards other compatriots that experience the same situation and have fewer opportunities to deploy strong relationships with local people. The immigrants that are already inserted in local networks have also more opportunities to establish new links with host individuals, although the acculturative experience was comparatively less intense. It seems that the level of change corresponds to the level of exposure. In the case of host individuals, we have distinguished between temporary exposure, constant exposure and immersion. These three levels correspond, respectively to travelers, frontier brokers and residents. Each category represents a different experience of acculturation, but also potentially 33 a different role for immigrants, whether in terms of acculturation of minority individuals or in terms of adaptation and integration. Residents usually have access to the same resources than the immigrants with which they are in everyday contact, whereas travelers belong to a more dissimilar social niche and can eventually contribute with new and, at this respect, worthier resources for immigrants. In-between, frontier brokers act as a bridge and channel resources between both communities. What we are illustrating is that the topology of the inter-group network, both at the micro and the macro levels, gives account in part of the potential of the acculturative experience for both immigrants and host individuals. It seems that there exist a homophily tendency in the inter-group relations in which cultural diversity is present. The intercultural relations that seem most probable are those between individuals separated by less cultural distance and, in consequence, which are going to experience lower acculturative conflict when they establish a link. For instance, for a recently arrived migrant would be more likely to deploy a relationship with a “resident” than with a “traveler”, even though the second could convey more resources and relations from the host society that are needed in the first stage of accommodation in the new country. We have tried to demonstrate that SNA can contribute to understand how the opportunities of contact are evolving along time and within groups. A case in point would be to examine the properties of the personal networks of the host individuals that, in turn, are present in the personal networks of immigrants. On the other hand, weak links between immigrants and host individuals may constitute another type of bridges that have not been analyzed in this article. In the second study we have observed that those who already had cohesive and dense networks may be less likely to include the immigrants in their network. Host population members represent the dominant side and have more control and influence on the definition of the inter-group relationship. Consequently, their attitudes toward the immigrants and toward the contact with minority groups have a key role in the 34 acculturation outcomes of both immigrants and host society individuals. “The other side of acculturation” is an important side in intercultural relations, though paradoxically most of the literature has put emphasis on the adaptation efforts that international immigrants must carry out to settle in the new country. One of the informants of the Study 2 brought up an aspect of immigrant incorporation that is seldom considered. Carol feels that “it’s good to live in a diverse world” not only for herself as an American but for immigrants too. “One of the lessons, one of the hard lessons for immigrant to learn when they arrive to a new place is that they have to kind of look at the society with brand new eyes.” Immigration and the ensuing diversity provide the host society with an opportunity for change. One of the main tasks of modern social sciences should be to precisely identify the mechanisms for diversity-induced change so that they can be employed as effective tools to address social problems. It remains up to us to understand diversity so that it can be employed as an effective tool in catalyzing positive outcomes. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This research was supported by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, the Eileen Blackey Fellowship, the American Association of University Women and the Missy Carter Dissertation Fellowship (for the Latina project in USA) and the Consejería de Gobernación de la Junta de Andalucía (for the study of four foreigners groups in Spain). The authors thank the Principal Investigators of the Welfare, Children and Families Three City Study and the array of public and private funding institutions who supported that research. 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New York: Kluwer Academic. 41 Table 1 Description of the personal network and the support providers Ecuadorians (n = 59) Argentines (n = 67) Germans (n = 36) Italians (n = 37) Total Variable M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD F Personal network Size of the personal network 15.10 5.22 16.44 5.10 20.91 5.66 17.24 4.67 17 5.50 9.825 (3,195) *** Number of compatriots 8.89 3.74 8.07 3.65 8.77 3.99 9.02 4.43 8.62 3.88 0.692 (3,195) Number of host individuals 5.59 4.18 7.58 4.32 9.33 5.26 6.86 3.11 7.17 4.43 6.007 (3,195) *** Social support providers Size of the social support subset 8.57 4.40 10.24 4.43 14.83 5.80 11.05 4.33 10.74 5.11 13.618 (3,195) *** Number of compatriots 6.54 3.66 6.83 3.39 8.05 3.90 7.78 4.07 7.14 3.72 1.770 (3,195) Number of host individuals 1.72 2.23 2.97 2.47 4.88 4.37 2.51 2.37 2.86 3.01 9.5 (3,195) *** Note: *** p <.001. 48 Black nodes: Spaniards. White nodes: Compatriots. Size of the node: Multiplexity. Figure 1. Personal Network of an Ecuadorian Immigrant (Case 44). 49 2.1. Acquaintanceship network 2.2. Strong ties network Black nodes: Latinos. White nodes: Americans. Grey nodes: other groups. Size of the node: Multiplexity. Figure 2. Carol’s Personal Network. 50 3.1. Acquaintanceship network 3.2. Strong ties network Black nodes: Latinos. White nodes: Americans. Size of the node: Multiplexity. Figure 3. Susan’s Personal Network.