Immigration and Acculturation: Mourning, Adaptation, and the Next Generation

311 Pages·2010·2.69 MB·English

by  Salman Akhtar

IMMIGRATION AND
ACCULTURATION
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BOOKS BY SALMAN AKHTAR
Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis Edited
Broken Structures (1992) New Psychiatric Syndromes (1983)
Quest for Answers (1995) The Trauma of Transgression (1991)
Inner Torment (1999) Beyond the Symbiotic Orbit (1991)
Immigration and Identity (1999) When the Body Speaks (1992)
New Clinical Realms (2003) Mahler and Kohut (1994)
Regarding Others (2007) The Birth of Hatred (1995)
Turning Points in Dynamic The Internal Mother (1995)
Psychotherapy (2009) Intimacy and Infi delity (1996)
The Damaged Core (2009) The Seasons of Life (1997)
Comprehensive Dictionary of The Seed of Madness (1997)
Psychoanalysis (2009) The Colors of Childhood (1998)
Matters of Life and Death (2011) Brothers and Sisters (1999)
Immigration and Acculturation Thicker than Blood (2000)
(2011) Does God Help? (2001)
Passions or Poisons? (in press) Three Faces of Mourning (2001)
Real and Imaginary Fathers (2004)
Cultural Zoo (2005)
Popular/Non-Fiction Mental Zoo (2005)
The Language of Emotions (2005)
Objects of Our Desire (2005) Freud along the Ganges (2005)
The Alphabet of Emotions (in Interpersonal Boundaries (2006)
press) Listening to Others (2007)
The Geography of Meanings (2007)
Severe Personality Disorders (2007)
Urdu Poetry The Crescent and the Couch (2008)
The Unbroken Soul (2008)
Ku-ba-ku (1976) On Freud’s “The Future of an
Doosra Ghar (1986) Illusion” (2008)
Nadi Ke Pas (2004) Lying, Cheating, and Carrying On
Ghazal@Englishjunction (2010) (2009)
Freud and the Far East (2009)
The Wound of Mortality (2010)
English Poetry The Electrifi ed Mind (2011)
On Freud’s “Beyond the Pleasure
The Hidden Knot (1985) Principle” (in press)
Conditions (1993) The Glow of Darkness (in press)
Turned to Light (1998) Unusual Interventions (in press)
On Freud’s “Negation” (in press)
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IMMIGRATION AND
ACCULTURATION
Mourning, Adaptation, and
the Next Generation
SALMAN AKHTAR, MD
JASON ARONSON
Lanham • Boulder • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK
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All cases reported in the book have been amply disguised to protect patient
confidentiality and all “personal communications” are included with the permission of the
individuals concerned.
Chapter 1 is reprinted with permission from The Geography of Meanings: Psychoanalytic
Perspectives on Place, Space, Land, and Dislocation, edited by M. T. Hooke and S. Akhtar
(pp. 165–90) (London: Karnac Books, 2007).
Chapter 4 is reprinted with permission from Psychoanalysis Culture and Society 14 (2009):
253–72.
Chapter 8 is reprinted (in an expanded form) with permission from The Psychoanalytic
Quarterly 75 (2006): 21–43.
“Limits” (Jorge Luis Borges), on page 143, is taken from “Boundaries,” translated by
Kenneth Krabbenhoft, copyright © 1999 by Kenneth Krabbenhoft, from Selected Poems
by Jorge Luis Borges, edited by Alexander Coleman. Used by permission of Viking
Penguin, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
“Masks” (Neera Tewari), on pages 166–67, is reprinted by permission of the author.
“Calendar” (Salman Akhtar), on page 161, is taken from “Conditions” (Chicago: Adams
Press). Copyright © 1993 by Salman Akhtar, MD. Reprinted by permission of the
author.
“A World Without Seasons” (Salman Akhtar), on page 91, is taken from “The Hidden
Knot” (Chicago: Adams Press). Copyright © 1985 by Salman Akhtar MD. Reprinted by
permission of the author.
Published by Jason Aronson
An imprint of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
http://www.rowmanlittlefield.com
Estover Road, Plymouth PL6 7PY, United Kingdom
Copyright © 2011 by Jason Aronson
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any
electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems,
without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote
passages in a review.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Akhtar, Salman, 1946 July 31–
Immigration and acculturation : mourning, adaptation, and the next generation /
Salman Akhtar.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7657-0824-3 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-7657-0826-7
(electronic)
1. Acculturation. 2. Emigration and immigration—Psychological aspects. I. Title.
HM841.A53 2011
305.9’06912—dc22 2010034500
™
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper
for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Printed in the United States of America
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To
my beloved cousin sisters
Sumbul Warsi and Salma Zaidi
who, after studying and working in
London, went back to New Delhi.
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CONTENTS
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xv
PART I: L EAVING AND ARRIVING
1 The Trauma of Geographical Dislocation 3
The Traumatic Ingredients of Environmental Change
(cid:129) Their Deleterious Impact on the Human Mind (cid:129)
Defensive and Restitutive Efforts (cid:129) Guidelines for
Treatment of Immigrant Patients
PART II: BEING AND BECOMING
2 Work and Money 31
Man’s Need for Work (cid:129) Inability to Find Gainful
Employment (cid:129) Vocational Changes Following
Immigration (cid:129) Assimilation Into the Work Environment
(cid:129) The Psychosocial “Glass Ceiling” (cid:129) The Role of
Money in an Immigrant’s Life
3 Sex and Marriage 55
The Overall Place of Sexuality in Life (cid:129) Sexual
Orientation and Immigration (cid:129) Timing of Marriage (cid:129)
Arranged versus Love Marriages (cid:129) Homoethnic and
Heteroethnic Dyads (cid:129) Divorce in the New Country
4 Friendship and Socialization 81
The Role of Friendship in Human Life (cid:129) The
Immigrant’s Homoethnic Friends (cid:129) The Immigrant’s
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viii Contents
Heteroethnic Friends (cid:129) Ethnic Food (cid:129) Homoethnic
Enclaves (cid:129) Gender Differences
5 Religion and Politics 103
Religion and Immigration (cid:129) The Politics of Immigration
(cid:129) The Tension between the New Immigrants and African
Americans (cid:129) The Immigrant’s Politics (cid:129) “Illegal Aliens”
PART III: THE DUSK AND THE DAWN
6 Encountering Middle Age and Getting Old 141
Encountering Limits (cid:129) Letting Go of Children (cid:129)
Becoming a Grandparent (cid:129) Retiring from One’s Job
(cid:129) Mourning the Death of Loved Ones (cid:129) Preparing for
One’s Own Death
7 The Next Generation 163
Special Challenges Faced by Children of Immigrants (cid:129)
Comparison with Child Immigrants (cid:129) Four Types of
Identity Consolidation (cid:129) Guidelines for the Treatment
of Bicultural Youth (cid:129) A Plea for Empathy for Immigrant
Parents
PART IV: THE WOUNDED HEALER
8 Challenges of Being an Immigrant Therapist 215
Developing and Maintaining Cultural Neutrality (cid:129)
Wondering about the Patient’s Choice of One as the
Therapist (cid:129) Scanning the Patient’s Associations for
Ethnocultural Difference (cid:129) Managing One’s Own
Bilingualism (cid:129) Tackling Special Dilemmas in Treating
Homoethnic Immigrant Patients
Appendix: Films about Immigration, Acculturation,
and the Next Generation 233
Notes 243
References 253
Index 279
About the Author 293
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PREFACE
O
ver the past decade, nearly ten million people have come to live
in the United States legally. The corresponding numbers for
Canada and England are 2 million and 1.5 million, respectively. Add
to this those who have entered these countries illegally and you end up
with numbers of staggering proportions. More impressive is the impact
these newly arrived individuals have had on the culture, economics, and
politics of their adopted homelands and the impact their geo-cultural re-
location has had upon them. As one contemplates these issues, attention
is readily attracted by the colorful, if poignant, saga of post-immigration
identity change. I myself devoted most of my last book on the topic,
Immigration and Identity (1999), to this particular psychosocial aspect of
immigration.
However, the impact of immigration extends beyond the trans-
formation of individual identity. It involves changes in the realm of
man’s relationship to animals and to his nonhuman surround. It affects
work, social relationships, friendships, marriage, and sex. It can tilt the
homosexual-heterosexual balance and cause a conundrum in erstwhile
well-defined gender roles. It can get involved in polarized social de-
bate, fierce legal struggles, gaudy political shenanigans, and throbbing
humanitarian concerns. It can influence child-rearing practices and
personality development in the next generation. It can have profound
clinical relevance when either the patient or the therapist (or both) are
immigrants (or children of immigrants). Above all, the story of immi-
gration is the story of human ambition as well as human restlessness, of
human escape as well as human freedom, and of the human need to stay
close to a “home-base” for safety and solace and the human desire to
venture away from it for excitement and discovery.
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