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Adapting to Assimilation

I come from a multi-cultural family. My grandparents lived in Norway my

entire life, and for the first 5 years of my life, I joined them there. I grew up

speaking Norwegian and English, learning them both at the same time. Where

as I didn’t have an accent with either, (learning two languages, taught at the

same time, and taught without accents makes it so you speak both without an

accent.) I would get words mixed up. This was while I was just in Norway.

When I was six years old, my parents and I moved back to Wisconsin.

They had both gone to school here, and wanted me to get an American

education. Going to school for the first time is hard for a six-year-old, but it’s

even harder for a foreign six-year-old. I was thrown into a culture that I didn’t

understand and I needed to assimilate immediately. According to the

Encyclopedia of Psychology, it states that in the cognitive development theory of

Jean Piaget, assimilation is one of two complementary activities involved in

adaptation, the process of learning from and adjusting to one's environment. So

at a young age, I was forced to adjust and learn according to this new

environment I was put into. I remember being nervous about it. Everyone was

speaking a language I understood, but not the one I was used to being dominant
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in my culture. I remember everyone dressing differently from me, with different

mannerisms. I was used to more stoic, but friendly people, even with the children

my age. In America it was different.

When I got to second grade, I was having troubles distinguishing what

language was what. I would be halfway through a sentence and start speaking in

Norwegian, or I’d just throw a word or two in my sentence. It is possible that I did

not assimilate as much, as I did adapt. This makes sense, because according to

Learning and Teaching site, Some contemporary scholars of immigration, such

as George De Vos, Celia Jaes Falicov, and Takeyuki Tsuda, argue that

immigrants and children of immigrants often fit into host societies through

adaptation, more selectively than assimilation: they retain or re-shape elements

of their ethnic culture depending on how the culture meets their needs in the host

county. So did I assimilate or just adapt? That’s the question.

One way of figuring this out is to look at the definitions of both.

Assimilation, as defined by The Psychology Lexicon, a Psychology online

glossary is said to be, verbatim, “Assimilation is a term used in Piaget's theory of

cognitive development that refers to the process of incorporating objects,

knowledge or new events into existing schemes or taking in new information that

is compatible with what one already knows. Moreover, Assimilation is a Piagetian

term for mental adaptation to one"s environment by incorporating experiences; a

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Piaget"s term for the process by which children interpret new experiences by

incorporating them into their existing schemes,” while Adaptation, as definied by

Psychology.about.com, is said to be, verbatim, “Adaptation is a term referring to

the ability to adjust to new information and experiences. Learning is essentially

adapting to our constantly changing environment. Through adaptation, we are

able to adopt new behaviors that allow us to cope with change.” So, according

this these definitions, the two aren’t all that different. Did I keep pieces of my

home country, and use them as they meet my needs in America? Or did I

completely change the things I was used to, and assimilate to American culture?

Maybe a bit of both.

According to the Learning and Teaching website, when adapting, the

internal world has to accommodate itself to the evidence with which it is

confronted and thus adapt to it, which can be a more difficult and painful

process. In the database analogy, it is like what happens when you try to put in

information which does not fit the pre-existent fields and categories. You have to

develop new ones to accommodate the new information. But it also says that in

assimilation, what is perceived in the outside world is incorporated into the

internal world without changing the structure of that internal world, but potentially

at the cost of "squeezing" the external perceptions to fit — hence pigeon-holing

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and stereotyping.

I love being able to tell people about my two countries. When I’m in

America, I tend to be very patriotic for Norway, I miss it and am proud of being

from Norway, and vice versa, when in Norway, I am very much American- and it

shows. There are smalls things that I do in both cultures that give me away. I’m

very polite, and while some American’s my age are, many are not. I hold the

door open for people, I help the elderly with chores or simple things like crossing

the street. They always comment about how I’m different from people my age,

and I tell them where I’m from and they act as if it makes sense. I also speak

quite eloquently typically, I think that is because when I was young, I was taught

that both English and Norwegian were very important and that I should respect

the languages, along with all my studies. Also, while I’m in Norway, people can

tell that I spend a lot of time in America. I’m superficial in comparison to most

Norwegians. I like expensive things, and instant gratification. A lot of teenagers

in Norway are this way as well, but I look at it with a sense of entitlement,

because I am so used to having the right and means to getting these things

whenever I want them in America. I also am more vulgar. I am more desensitized

to violence and sex than they are. People will often ask me if I spend a lot of time

in America, especially from my sarcastic sense of humor.

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In conclusion, assimilation is something that I had to do. Mentally, I had to

adjust how I thought and the things I was used to doing. Psychologically, my

brain is wired differently than many other people’s because I am from two

different cultures. Where there are similarities in both of my cultures, there are

also differences. Whether I assimilated or adapted, whatever definition you

would use to define my experiences, I have grown into a good person because of

the things I have done in my life. I may not have a psychological disorder, but I

have gone through a psychological ordeal. Changing countries and going back

and forth takes a toll on you mentally, having to remember what to do and what

not to do. I believe that I have become a strong person because of it and I am

proud that I can stand up straight and say that I am American and that I am

Norwegian.