Acculturation Process of Arab-Muslim Immigrants in the United States

Abstract

While globalization has made this world smaller, interdependent, and heterogeneous, clashes among different cultures became inevitable. Immigrants leave their home country for many reasons, by choice or necessity. The U.S. is considered one of the countries that enjoys its cultural diversity. In the case of Arab-Muslim immigrants, they came to the U.S. either seeking a better life, or fleeing prosecution. They come from completely different culture, language, and religion. This move makes them prone to experience one or more challenges: assimilation, integration, separation, or marginalization. Since assimilation is very hard to achieve, integration is the ideal choice for which scholars aspier. This paper investigates the acculturation process of Arab-Muslim immigrants in the U.S. Results showed a variety of potential barriers exist hindering Arab-Muslim immigrants from successful integration into the United States society. Cultural and religious differences, distinctions in moral and ethical values, perception of gender relations, demonization of the Arab population in mass media, and discrimination are the major factors causing the overall struggles of the acculturation process.

International Muslim Students

“…Some researchers have examined the effect of negative attitudes toward the Muslim students on their educational achievements. As a researcher, Watt (2011) considered Islamaphobia a barrier to educational success.…”

Understanding Culture with a Transnational Population: a Value-Sensitive Approach

“…Population migration is widely recognized phenomenon which has increased significantly in the past decade [8,74]. A particular important aspect here is the acculturation process in the new environment is dealt with by adopting a number of different strategies [21].…”

“…A particular important aspect here is the acculturation process in the new environment is dealt with by adopting a number of different strategies [21]. This is evident where individuals come from contexts that differ significantly from the culture of the host country [8]. These distinctions between individuals' origins and their acquired identity have been characterized as a new form of identification referred to as transnationalism [28].…”

Acculturation of the Muslims Settled in the West

“…It is important to note that the media portrayal of Muslims has been destructive in the western world (Al Wekhian, 2016). People in the West tends to perceive Muslims with fear and suspicion.…”

“…Findings now highlight individualized trajectories, where the process of acculturation may be inconsistent and intermittent with periods of positive adaptation and negative stress. Taking into account the challenges of cross-cultural adaptations, the positive and negative experiences may occur sequentially or simultaneously (Ali, 2008;Al Wekhian, 2016).…”