Foreigners and immigrants 101: “Reverse Culture Shock” when going back home
Didn’t we all “idealize” our home country early on after first arriving to the US? It felt like back home “everything made sense,” or at least, for sure, was much easier. Many of us still may long to visit back home and fantasize about it. Once we do visit, however, reality often meets us differently than our memories or our fantasies, and we experience a “reverse culture shock.”
Relocating to the US brings both challenges and opportunities. Challenges may include difficulties communicating in a foreign language, understanding local norms, or making friends in a different culture, among others.
Opportunities are marked by expansions in our horizons. For instance, we learn to appreciate a new (to us) type of diversity, or a different set of day-to-day priorities and values. Examples are abundant and depend on our personal backgrounds. Perhaps in our home country the majority is Buddhist, and we are accustomed to celebrating holidays and rituals that come along with that. In contrast, in the US, we are exposed to more Christian traditions, and find ourselves celebrating a whole new set of American holidays. Or in our home country, societal dynamics and tensions involve specific ethnic groups, while in the US we learn to appreciate the consequences of the history of slavery on current tensions. Or in our home country LGBT identity is not something that is comfortably discussed in public, while in the US, we are faced with much more acceptance and pluralism around the issue. Likewise, living in the US may expose us to new ideas about the relationships between the genders, the status of women, the importance of physical and recreational activity in daily living, the ways of an individualistic society, parent-child dynamics, among many other issues.
Exposure to such ideas and values often results in our re-evaluation of our own. We may develop stronger convictions about our own ways, or alternatively may go through some value and habit shift, thus setting us a somewhat apart from the background from which we have come.
As this happens, we might even find ourselves criticizing our home country. Perhaps criticizing “old school” views, e.g., the way women are treated, or the way the environment is (not) being cared for, or the role of hierarchy at the workplace. These are but a few examples, and each of us might have their own.
“Reverse Culture Shock”
When we go back home for a visit, we bring along this “package” of newly acquired experiences, habits, and ideas. We bring along a set of “new eyes” that may see things differently, with awe for the good, and perhaps criticism of the bad. In many ways we are not our old selves anymore. We are a new self, that is a hybrid between our old self from before we left our home country, and a new American persona.
People back home may recognize this in us and may react to it. They may react to the way we now dress, the way we speak, and the ideas and views we express. They may like our new hybrid persona or may feel that we are no longer a strong member of the group to which we used to belong. If the latter is the case, we may feel somewhat lonely when visiting back home.
As we experience that, we may ask ourselves: Who am I, and where do I belong? We may take this one step further and ask: Who do I want to be? Where do I want to belong? Answering these questions may not be simple or straightforward. Our answers may change over time as a function of how happy we are in our current life in the US. They also may depend on how easy it is for us to integrate our newly adopted experiences, preferences and values with our old persona and the culture from which we came.
As the visit in our home country ends, and we return to the US, we often experience another shift in perspectives. When we visited back home, we were primed to embody more of our home country version of ourselves, and now again, we need to re-adjust to the American culture and the American set of experiences. In my personal experience, the hybrid persona is forever with us as we cross, back and forth, the bridge between the US and our home country.
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I am a therapist in San Diego, CA, who specializes in therapy for foreigners and immigrants. In therapy we address the unique experiences that you might have as a foreigner. If you like to explore the possibility of therapy with me, you may contact me for a free 15-min phone consultation. I will ask you about what you might want to address in therapy and share with you whether I can help. If I can’t help, I will refer you to other resources. Call me today at 858-330-0065 or click here to schedule your free phone consultation.