Few days ago, Dec. 18th, was "Immigration Day" named by the United Nations.
A very interesting and cross-cultural concept which is associated with several cultural issues as well as some other economical, social and psychological effects on the lives of many individuals.
While it could be true that an average "immigrant" enjoys more courage and determination than the rest of his fellow citizens to leave his motherland facing with numerous barriers to survive and grow in the host society, but this could not be always the case.
Among the many reasons leading a person to immigrate, these can be pointed out so boldly: Education, Economic Wealth, Better future, Better job opportunities, Religious freedoms, Genocides, Ethnic identities, Family reunions, Retirement trends and many more.
Like any other huge steps of life, immigration has its own bright sides and dark sides integrated so deeply to each other.
The language barriers, depression, cultural shock, The feelings of separation, not being useful, not being productive, etc. can be counted as many negative side effects of this phenomenon.
However, unlike for the immigrating generation who usually go through all these harsh steps to smoothen their way out of the host society, immigration brings tremendous advantages for the new born generation of the immigrants, the second-generation.
Advantages such as being open-eyed exposed to many different cultures, languages and ways of life. Better possibilities for educational, economical and personal developments and the ability of seeing the things in life from broader perspective or seeing the "Big Picture" behind the things.
This new generation is often called "Melting Pot", an interesting term which was used first to describe America and its many immigrants. The "Melting pot" concept can be better understood by the following quote.
"I could point out to you a family whose grandfather was an Englishman, whose wife was Dutch, whose son married a French woman, and whose four sons have wives of different nations." (Luedtke, 1992, 3)[Wikipedia, The world's largest free encyclopedia]
I may write more about immigration and its many impacts on the lives of individuals in future posts.
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[Photo: Immigration courtesy stock.xpert]
