- Hello and welcome
to Episode 27
in HDFS 060.
This episode we're calling families and macrosystems.
We're going to continue talking
about the diverse experiences that families have
and how they adapt to them.
And today we're going to focus on changes,
particularly in the macrosystem.
When people's experience includes
a changing macrosystem.
And we're going to look at two types of changes.
One is when the macrosystem itself changes;
people are staying in the same place
but the culture changes.
And we'll look at a variety of reasons why that happens.
And the second is when people move
to a different macrosystem.
Both involve adaptations
to a changing or changed different culture.
And change, as we know,
always requires adaptation.
So, let's start
with the PowerPoint there,
and I'll try
to stay a little bit off screen
so that I won't interfere.
And I may disappear myself entirely.
But my voice will still be here
so don't worry about me,
I will come back.
And it would help
if my PowerPoint would change.
(mumbling)
What have we done
to my PowerPoint?
Let's go, this one.
There, okay.
All right, so we're talking
about ecological change in general
and we remember that change in the ecosystem
always requires adaptation by individuals and by families.
We also know that adaptation
is always at least a little bit stressful
yet in the process of adaptation
people are often learning something
and changing their understanding and extending it.
So, a change in the ecosystem often fosters development.
Small changes, we know, are less trustful than big ones.
Slow changes are less stressful than quick ones.
And you may recall
that in the text I used the term adaptational overload.
When changes come along too quickly for people to adapt to
so they're constantly adapting and they're never getting
the opportunity to settle in and take advantage
of the adaptations that they've made
to help them be comfortable
and learn about the changed ecosystem
that has been stressful for them.
So, we also know that changes
in the larger ecosystem come in many different forms.
There are certainly minor changes in the physical ecosystem,
that's everything that surrounds you,
and we adapt to it.
We're used to adapting
to physical ecosystem changes
when we go from one season to another in New England
or when we experience a drought
or when the weather turns cold
or when we put an addition on our house,
the little changes.
We also know that there's social change over time
and we know that the ecosystem may change
because relationships change,
families change, politics change,
people's values change.
We know that people adapt
and we know that people at different stages in the lifespan
may adapt differently.
So children may adapt more quickly than elders.
People may not be able to adapt
as well as others
and we know that teenagers
are likely to pick up any new thing that comes along.
The more changes that happen
in an ecosystem
and the more rapidly they change
the more difficulty people have in adapting.
Okay, so let's look at what happens
when the macrosystem changes.
We've been talking about briefly changes
in the ecosystem in general
but the macrosystem is a special part of the ecosystem.
Remember it represents the culture.
And cultural change is fairly likely over time
in some cultures.
Some cultures change rapidly and frequently.
Changes happen because historical events happen,
because of changes in...
Well, we'll look at a whole bunch of them.
Technology often drives cultural change, macrosystem change.
We've watched that over the last century and more.
The railroad changed our culture.
Refrigeration has changed our culture.
Communication technology has changed, central heat.
Those are all changes in the ecosystem
that represent macrosystem changes.
We expect people to be different
now that they have technology.
We expect them to use it.
Sometimes a culture changes because it's discovered
by people from other cultures.
We call that tourism.
People want to come and visit.
So you can have an agrarian, very stable society
that is discovered to be beautiful with a nice climate
and interesting local arts and crafts
and tourists will start to come.
And that changes the ecology of the community
and it changes potentially the macrosystem.
People from other cultures come,
they want to be entertained,
they want to bring their money
and they bring their culture with them,
their language, their habits, their customs,
the way they dress.
And they're likely to leave some of that culture behind
which creates a macrosystem change
in the new tourist site.
Economic development often follows technology,
cultural change, tourism,
and the economic development can be up or down.
The economy can improve.
More people come, more people have ways of making money,
more resources, crops develop better,
they open new land
and people have more resources
or the economy can go down.
It can enter a recession, people can lose.
You can have drought, you can have crop failure,
you can have hail storms, you could have insects.
And all of those, as they change the economy,
are likely to change the macrosystem.
What people can do, the way they do things
and the values they place on those.
Climate change faces us now.
That's going to create macrosystem changes.
It's also going to require some people to leave
the macrosystem they're in
because it's going to be underwater
and they're going to have to find new ways of living.
We have natural disasters;
droughts, floods, famines
that people have to adapt to
and it may change the macrosystem as they adapt.
Urbanization; when people begin to move into cities
they change their lifestyle from rural to urban.
Those are different macrosystems.
They have different ways
of doing things, different households,
different opportunities, different employment
and different expectations of each other.
Their relationships change.
Urbanization is often a major problem
as it changes macrosystems.
And we've seen what happens with crime, for example,
or drug abuse when people are crowded together.
Family violence, things like that.
Another form of macrosystem change comes
when people experience wars
or revolutions, macrosystem clash.
Different people have different ways of doing things,
they represent different cultures
and they decide they don't like each other
or they don't like one particular macrosystem,
the people who follow that macrosystem.
So we have revolutions, we have invasions,
we have wars, civil wars,
and those sometimes lead to genocide;
people trying to wipe out people who represent
a particular macrosystem,
pogroms, religious macrosystems
that are subject to violence.
People trying to drive them out
and often killing them
and trying to destroy that particular macrosystem,
destroy the culture.
Adaptation is required
no matter what kind of macrosystem change
is happening, of course.
And it's important,
as we look at families,
to remember that no matter what is happening
in any macrosystem,
whether that macrosystem is changing
or whether people are moving
from one macrosystem to another,
people are going to continue to be people
and they're going to continue to form relationships,
they're going to have children,
they're going to try to parent those children.
They're going to create microsystems.
They're going to make homes.
And that's going to happen.
And in the process of happening,
those activities may reflect
the adaptations people have to make
to the new ecosystem and macrosystem
that they're experiencing.
And they will, in the process of creating their families
and raising their families
and dealing with all the things that happen in life,
they will be contributing
to the development of the new macrosystem.
So, we say that people are transacting
as a two-way interaction
between the ecosystem and the person.
So the people are changing
and in the process they're changing the ecosystem.
And so it's going both ways.
Now, we talked the last few minutes
about the changes that happen in macrosystems
and let's take an intermediate step.
So, we're going to go toward relocation
from one macrosystem to another,
but sometimes the macrosystem changes
because we relocate within our ecosystem.
Everything I've said so far assumes
that people are going to be continuing
to live in the same place.
The macrosystem is going to change.
But sometimes people are going
to experience macrosystem change
in the same ecosystem.
They're just going to move to a different place
in that ecosystem.
So, the culture is not going to change greatly.
And I think one example we can use
is moving from a rural place
to an urban place
or creating an urbanization by gathering together.
We're going to change the macrosystem.
We're relocating in the same general ecosystem.
So, it's same culture
but we're going to create a new subculture within it.
And that's more complex
because when you change
both ecosystem and the macrosystem
there are more adaptations to make.
Now let's move directly
to looking at
when change involves both relocation
to a different ecosystem
and from one macrosystem to another,
then the adaptations required are much more complex.
And there are several ways this happens
when people relocate and go to a different ecosystem
and a different macrosystem.
Sometimes they visit
a different macrosystem, different ecosystem.
They go to another culture.
They experienced that;
they come as students, they go home.
They go back and forth.
They may have relatives who have migrated
and they come to visit them.
They go back and forth and they become comfortable in both
and they migrate.
They move, they change their primary location.
And sometimes they plan to migrate
and to continue
to participate in the previous macrosystem as well.
So they're actually becoming bi-cultural.
So they are adding a macrosystem
and perhaps changing where their primary residence is.
(clears throat)
Excuse me, I had to cough.
So, they're creating a bi-cultural ecosystem for themselves.
They're going back and forth two different places,
two different cultures.
And sometimes people move permanently
but they maintain ties.
So, they're staying connected to the previous macrosystem
and the previous place but they're not in it anymore.
And then other people migrate permanently
and don't have ties with their former home.
So they are making the complete change.
They're leaving their macrosystem
and their ecosystem behind
and they're moving into a new macrosystem and ecosystem.
The ecosystem is the whole thing,
the macrosystem is the values and the consistencies.
They're maintaining ties.
Other people completely cut their ties
and that is likely to happen abruptly
and involve permanent departure from home.
They are displaced.
And that happens when there are wars,
when there are natural disasters,
when there are other things that make it impossible
for people to stay in an ecosystem
and there's no place within the ecosystem for them to settle
so that they would be able to stay on the same macrosystem.
So they are forced out of their ecosystem.
And that often involves macrosystem conflict.
They're displaced and they're immigrants,
sudden immigrants, unintentional immigrants
and sometimes refugees,
fleeing so that they can live, finding a place to live
and accepting that that has to be
on a different macrosystem.
And in the United States now,
we have lots of immigrants and lots of refugees
and many more people who would like to be.
And some of you have worked with families
in the refugee community here
in Burlington, or will,
and many of you will work
with refugees and immigrants in the future.
So, it's important for us to look
at what they're experiencing.
Their experience requires the greatest adaptation of all.
Yes, there we go.
And remember that family adaptations,
the ways that families are going to deal
with being in
a new macrosystem are interesting,
because, as we've said,
people at different stages of the lifespan
may adapt differently.
So, in the immigrant and refugee community,
in most refugee and immigrant communities
we see families being stressed
because members in different stages of development
are affected in different ways.
The youngest children are learning the current ecosystem
for the first time; infants, toddlers, young children.
They're just learning about the ecosystem.
They're exploring it.
They're learning wherever they are,
learning whatever there is to know in that
and they're forming their understanding of the environment
for the first time
in wherever their family is living at that time.
Older children are learning a new ecosystem
and they don't have a lot of loyalty
to the earlier one, it's changing.
The new one is just as good maybe,
just as interesting to them.
And children learn new ecosystems very readily.
They explore it, they learn the language naturally
by using it with other children and adults.
So, the process of adaptation is essentially the same
as the process of development for them.
They're not having to change what they have developed.
Adolescents are different.
They have learned an ecosystem,
they have an understanding of it
and now they're in a new one.
So they're adapting to the new as different.
So, it's not the first time
they've developed a way of understanding their ecosystem
and behaving appropriately in it.
They're seeing the new
and they're aware of the differences
so they're able to compare
the former and the current.
And they may want to go back to the former,
but if that's not possible,
adolescents adapt pretty quickly to new environments.
That's one of the joys of being an adolescent;
you can learn things quickly.
Young adults are working on identity
and intimacy across macrosystems.
And the displacement,
the loss of one macrosystem
and having to adapt to a new one may interfere
with their development of a sense of identity
and development of relationships.
If they've lost relationships
that they were developing in the previous macrosystem
and they're in a new situation
and the relationships, the people,
the available partners, the other peers are different,
it may be more difficult for them to develop
both the sense of identity; who am I,
because they're trying to incorporate
the former identity and the former culture
into the new identity
in the new culture.
So there's more adaptation for them
and it comes at a critical time in forming relationships.
And that may make it more difficult
and making life more difficult for the young adults
than it was for the children and adolescents.
Middle-aged people, maybe parents,
they're more likely to embrace the new
because they want to create opportunities
for their children.
But they may be hindered by the old macrosystem
and their understanding
and the fact that they may lack the skills
to participate fully in the new one.
So, we see middle-aged people adapting
by essentially giving up their old culture
or hanging onto it around the fringes
and accepting that they are perhaps
in a new and inferior,
less celebrated status
in the new culture,
and they accept because they're adults
and they have responsibilities.
They accept often
that they're just going to have to work their butts off,
they're never going to be accepted in the new culture,
but that's the sacrifice that they are making
for the opportunities for their children to have a new life.
So, in middle adulthood, particularly parents
are likely to accept
their position in the new culture,
their inferior position.
They may have lost jobs that they could do,
they may have lost affluence
but because they don't speak the language
or they don't have the credentials,
they may be limited in the kinds of jobs
that they can obtain in the new culture.
And they're sad about that
but it's in the interest...
They will work at whatever they have to do
to keep their children safe
and to create opportunities for them.
You may know families that are doing that.
You may know that many of the staff
at the university,
particularly the lower paid staff, are immigrants
and many of them have skills
that they could use in their old culture
to make a good living
and they can't use those in this country
because of lack of language.
So, everybody has stories about people
who are raising their children in this culture deliberately,
partly to make sure they live
and partly to give them opportunities.
But the parents are accepting,
not necessarily happily,
but they're accepting the reality
that they are much less valued
in their new culture than they were in their old.
Elders, if we go on up the lifespan, may change the least.
They may just simply give up.
"I'm not going to adapt.
"Here I am, I'm an immigrant.
"I'm old, I'm going to preserve my former way of life
"as much as I can
"and I'm going to try to get my children
"to preserve those values and those traditions
"and I'm going to try to have
"my grandchildren preserve those traditions and know them."
And that sometimes leads to conflict.
Adolescents are often much more interested
in becoming acculturated in the new society,
the new culture
than they are in preserving the old.
There are of course differences.
Some adolescents really want to be in two cultures
or to know the former culture.
Some families make that happen happily
as a way of finding a place in the new culture,
happily being immigrants
and having a different culture that you can share
with people in the new culture.
So, families have different ways of adapting
and sometimes they rely on the traditions
as a way of creating identity for themselves
in the new culture.
And that's more likely to happen
if the new culture is welcoming
of those other traditions or at least entertained by them.
But what we see in families
is some difference
in the way individual members of the family adapt
and embrace the change that has happened.
And those are certainly understandable,
those different stages of the life cycle.
And there may be conflict.
There's also the potential for disrespect.
And I'll give you a couple of examples of that,
the difficulties that happen.
Sometimes adolescents being adolescents
are embarrassed by their elders
who don't understand the language.
I remember many years ago talking
with a person whose family had immigrated
to the United States.
And he talked about that.
He was a psychologist.
We were talking about his family coming.
His father had (indistinct).
So, it was very interesting for me,
but I didn't know he was an immigrant from Germany
because he spoke English as a native English speaker.
And the second part of the conversation was...
We were together over a couple of days
and the second time it came up, I said,
"But you came to the United States
"before you were an adolescent,"
and he said, "Well, yes, but how do you know?"
I said, "Because you don't have an accent.
"People lose the ability
"to learn new languages without an accent across puberty.
"So, children who immigrate
"typically speak the new language without an accent
"but people who come here later often retain their accent."
He looked at me and said, "You're kidding."
I said, "No, that's what the research says."
(chuckles)
He said, "Oh my goodness,"
and I said, "What?"
He said, "I have an older brother.
"He was 15 when we immigrated
"and I've always thought he was stupid
"because he couldn't speak English without an accent."
And I said, "Well, he may be trying his best
"but retraining the brain and the motor apparatus of speech
"doesn't work unless you've had six or seven
"or eight different languages,
"then you're keeping that active.
"But most people who have just one or two
"will speak any language they learn after puberty
"with an accent."
And he said, "I've got to call my brother.
"I need to apologize.
"I've been criticizing him for 30 years."
So, disrespect within the family, in that case,
just simply because they immigrated
at different stages of life with different potentials.
Another situation that's...
And that one's okay.
The brother was all right.
He wasn't crushed by his little brother's criticism
over the years.
But one that's much harder is when, particularly teenagers
who are likely to be critical
of their parents and grandparents anyway,
in immigrant families,
that criticism can become disrespectful
because adolescents may, in some cases,
not all but some,
may immigrate and adapt
and learn the language and be comfortable in the new culture
and be embarrassed by their parents and grandparents.
And embarrassment may lead them to not want to spend time
or be in public with their parents
or with their grandparents.
And that sometimes becomes very disrespectful
that there's open conflict between children and adolescents
and their elders.
And that conflict can be harmful to the psyches.
It can lead to open conflict within a family,
people fighting each other
because they're trying to,
on one hand preserve the old, the old culture,
and on the hand, the younger hand,
people may be critical of their elders
for not being able to adapt.
A little bit of knowledge
about lifespan development and adaptation might be useful.
And that does help.
And it's more likely to happen
in refugee and immigrant communities
where people are sophisticated
about what's going on as they adapt.
Okay, let's move on.
But keep in mind that the family is always adapting
and there are many different ways
that they're likely to adapt.
Now, let me go
to the more serious
kind of change in macrosystem.
And that's the situation where people
have multiple transitions.
And this is true
of many of our immigrant and refugee families.
They have moved not just from one macrosystem to another,
but they have been displaced from home to somewhere else
in their native ecosystem,
and then displaced from that to a refugee camp
in a different country,
and then perhaps to another refugee camp.
And each refugee camp
by itself represents a different macrosystem.
There may be similarities but there are also differences.
Differences that depend on who is in that refugee camp,
what groups are being mixed,
who is in charge of the camp,
who's writing the rules?
And it's usually the host country that is doing that.
Most countries don't invite 10,000 people
to come in and create a community on their own.
They provide something for them
and they provide it according to the macrosystem standards
of the country that people are fleeing to.
And then sometimes people go from a refugee camp
to an interim residence to wait for permanent settlement
and that interim resident might last for years.
And then eventually people get
to a permanent resettlement home.
But if you talk to some of the folks
in the refugee whose resettlement community here,
some of them have lived in more places than they can count.
They have lived
in several different macrosystems temporarily
and then they're here.
Now, on one level, Bronfenbrenner would say,
"Well, that's great.
"They're experiencing different macrosystems
"so they're going to be really good at adapting
"but there may be adaptational overload."
There's also the fact that different people in a family
might be born in different places
and everybody in the family
has a different macrosystem history.
We have kids who were born in refugee camps
who then live in temporary communities
for a period of time.
So they've done infancy and toddlerhood in one macrosystem,
they've done early childhood in another,
they've done middle childhood in yet another,
they've come after a series of changes
from one macrosystem to another
and they're still confused:
"What's going on?"
It depends on the number of relocations
and these are important developmental questions.
Getting a timeline
for an immigrant family
or a refugee family...
Getting a timeline of where they have been
and what the conditions were
and how long they were in different places
is an important step in understanding the development
and the adaptations of the different family members
and what they're dealing with.
So, you have number of relocations,
you have the length of stays in each one
and you have the conditions in each.
Was there a privation?
Did they have enough to eat?
Was there abuse?
Were they traumatized?
Were there murders?
Were there killings?
Did people die?
Were there epidemics?
Were there separations from family, temporary or permanent?
Was there an opportunity for education?
Many of the refugee camps, there's no education for kids,
there's no adult education.
People are on their own and without resources.
There's no employment, there's no employment training.
So, if you look at those conditions
and then different places that people have been in,
you can see how their development has been fostered,
facilitated or, in many cases,
their development has been on hold
and they've suffered abuse and trauma and hunger and fear
and violation and violence.
So, when people come as refugees
we can't know
until we talk with them at length
what they actually have to deal with.
And asking people to adapt to a new macrosystem
when they're still suffering the effects of trauma
and the emotional upheaval of trauma,
the reactivity that trauma causes,
it may be quite unreasonable for us to expect people
to kind of pull it together
and raise a family in a new culture.
It's also necessary to realize
that the immigrant population, the refugee population
does not represent a single social class.
They're not all people who were dirt poor
wherever they came from.
Again, there are people who have education,
there are people who've had employment,
people who have been affluent,
who have lost everything in the process
of becoming refugees.
There are others who have been dirt poor,
who don't have education, who have never had resources,
and we're going to put them in a culture
where they're going to have to deal
with how to get those resources.
So that diversity has to be kept in mind
that each refugee or immigrant family is different.
They have different history.
They come from different places.
They have different macrosystems that they have lived in,
different macrosystems that they bring with them
as well as different experiences as individuals,
and losses as families.
All of that diversity,
all of that experience affects the adaptation
and the acculturation
of those families that have experienced changes
in the macrosystems that they've participated in.
Now let's look at that a little more.
How do you adapt to a new macrosystem?
Well, it's facilitated by prior experience
in different ecosystems.
So, if you've traveled,
if you've lived in different ecosystems
by choice or opportunity
and you've not been traumatized,
you've not been poor, you've have been educated,
all of those things facilitate adaptation
to a new macrosystem
because you've had the opportunity before.
It helps if you can have trans-contextual dyads.
So, when people move individually,
all on their own
they're not having the advantage
of what Bronfenbrenner would call (indistinct) system links,
trans-contextual dyads, those things.
If you come with other family,
if you come with extended family,
if you immigrate with a group of people
from the same culture
or you're joining family when you get here
or others that you've known in the past,
if you have bonds,
if you have relationships that are reciprocal and positive,
if you have those,
the adaptation to the new macrosystem goes better.
If you're all on your own
and all of your relationships now are new
it's much harder.
Familiarity with the new ecosystem
whether it's through videos, the movies, books,
knowing people in the past helps,
and knowing the language.
Knowing the language is a key
to being able to adapt to the new macrosystem,
which is why people who are being prepared for resettlement
often get pretty intensive language training
because to arrive on a boat or on an airplane or a train
and settle into a place
with a language you don't know leaves you hanging out there.
Having skills that's useful in the new ecosystem
is very helpful.
If people can be useful,
if they can engage in mobile activities
as they're adapting,
that will help them adapt.
They'll be able to work with other people,
they'll be able to have resources
rather than worrying where their next meal
is going to come from.
And they will find a place in the community
because work, your vocation, the things that you do
is important for finding a position in society, a role,
and having housing, having a place to go,
having a schedule, having a routine, skills help.
If you can maintain your ties and access
to the former ecosystem,
if you have communication with family, former friends,
things like that,
that will help.
So you're not feeling like you're totally alone
in a boat without an oar, without paddles.
So, you have some human connections that you can maintain
and talk to people, communicate with people
who understand where you've been
and what you're going through.
That's helpful to the adaptation process.
And all of these are covered by different parts
of Bronfenbrenner's framework.
Adaptation is hindered
by the traumatic experiences as we've said
in those prior ecosystems.
The more trauma you've experienced,
the more frightened you've been,
the more injured you've been, the more losses you've had,
those all are going to hinder your ability
to cope with the new ecosystem.
Losing significant people, losing those relationships,
losing the roles that you've had.
All of those make it difficult.
One of the things that having a resettlement community,
a community made up of refugees and immigrants,
one of the things that it does is provide you
a way to have a role within that community.
You may not be able to find one right away
in the new community,
the people who've lived in it for a long time,
but you may be able to find a place
and get support and form relationships
within the refugee community.
That's one of the guiding principles
of having a resettlement program
so that you're not bringing people willy-nilly
into individual communities that aren't prepared for them.
And again, one of my experiences was in high school.
I may have already told you probably or will
that I grew up in a small community, 2,400 people,
all of whom were white,
all of whom were some form of Christian or nothing
but the community was Christian
and European European-American
and there weren't any immigrants.
There might've been a couple of people who were war brides,
I didn't know them,
but in high school, when I was in high school,
a German refugee family moved to the community.
I don't know how they got there
but I worked with the father and the son
on the farm that I worked on in the summers.
And they didn't speak English.
And I watched them be bullied
by other workers on the farm.
I watched them struggle.
I watched them be made fun of,
(indistinct)
I didn't get very far.
And I watched as that family gradually just dissolved.
The mother ended up in a mental institution,
a psychiatric hospital
because she just couldn't take it.
And I went off to college
so I don't know what happened to them after that
but I was very aware that they had come
without the language, with nobody else.
I didn't know anybody else who spoke German
in the community
and there were certainly no other refugees.
So, they were brought into an unwelcoming community
with lack of opportunity.
They were working for the same wage as I was,
which at that time was 75 cents an hour.
I got up to a dollar and 1/4 by the time I was in college.
And that was a lot of money
in my age.
But adaptation is hindered
by being on your own without supports,
without anybody who knows what your experience is,
and that's why we have the resettlement communities.
And finally, let me touch again
on family adaptation
in the new macrosystem.
We've already talked about differences between members
at different stages,
conflict between the former and the new macrosystems.
There are differences in the ease of adaptation
of different stages
and families experience stress because of those differences
and the conflict that may come from them.
It's an interesting experience
that because the younger are able to adapt,
learn the language more quickly,
they often get increased power
because the parents, the elders
are not able to communicate in the new macrosystem.
The younger can
and everybody has stories of immigrant families
where children are answering the phone,
children are opening and reading the mail
and translating it
for their parents.
We have situations where children;
third, fourth, fifth graders
are going to their parents appointments,
to their medical appointments,
monitoring their healthcare,
taking a role essentially as parent and guide
for their parents
and that is developmentally very interesting
because we're supposed to be giving the kids power.
It's supposed to be becoming balanced.
And what happens is that kids get a lot
and parents have very little in those cases,
which distorts the family system
and the normal parental role
and it may last the rest of their lives.
There are losses of traditional roles
for parents and elders taking care of the family,
passing on the culture.
They may not be able to do that.
And elders particularly who feel
that everybody in the family is rejecting
everything they have held dear for most of their lives.
It's terrible loss for elders
to feel useless, worthless
and at a loss.
They can't do what elders are supposed to do
and that causes depression, stress, grief, anger.
And if you think back, we have lots of sources of stress,
lots of sources of grief,
lots of causes
of emotional upset
in the family system.
That all poses a mental health burden for the entire family.
So, immigrant families, refugee families
are often very fragile.
Those who are adapting well, those who have resources,
those who understand the process they're going through
will be able to deal with those mental health issues.
Those who don't have support, who don't understand,
who don't have the experiences they need to adapt
will be at risk.
And another of my experiences was in college,
volunteering at Boston State Hospital
and in the unit where I volunteered for two years
was a women's unit for people
who were chronically mentally ill and were going to live
the rest of their lives in the hospital probably.
There were 120 women in that building
with various forms of psychosis and...
Anyway, a fairly large number
of the women in that unit
were immigrant women.
They had come into the hospital
at some point during their adaptation
because they couldn't adapt.
And we got to look at summaries of the cases
and many of them at that particular time were Greek women
and what had happened,
and there were other stories like this in the hospital,
was that the local Greek community had protected them
and in the center of Boston.
And the Greek community was a thriving immigrant community
with Greek-speaking church, Greek Orthodox church,
people who spoke Greek
and urban renewal destroyed that neighborhood.
The physical ecosystem
that supported Greek families and Greek elders was destroyed
to build some of Downtown Boston.
And it was one of the early urban renewals.
They didn't make any provision
for keeping that community together.
And the people were dispersed across the city.
They lost their neighborhoods.
They lost their support people, families,
moved to different suburbs if they could
and the people who were left alone or moved by themselves
ended up in Boston State Hospital.
And finally, and this is literally
the last point I'm going to make
is that the expectations and responsibility
for the younger generation are changed.
The younger generation in immigrant families
is often expected to take care of their elders, and they do.
They're expected to get educations, and they do.
They're expected to work.
They're expected to be good at adaptation.
And they may or may not be.
So, many young people,
in the younger generation of immigrant and refugee families
live with a set of expectations and responsibilities
that are not common
among people who grew up in the macrosystem.
So, on campus you may know people
who are younger generation immigrants,
and talking with them about what their families expect
and what they expect of themselves
in regard to their parents, to their siblings,
to their elders is a mind opener.
And it suggests
that the experience we have growing up adapting
is a major factor
in helping us become who we are.
And we wish them well.
All right, questions, comments,
email me, I'll be happy to try to respond.
And thanks for listening, stay safe.