Gatson CAPS Blog #4

CAPS Blog #4

I chose the article “Lincoln refugee finds empathy as strife hits the Congo” to focus on for this CAPS blog.  In this article Idex Kusukika briefly touches on how hard it is to be away from his family and see them struggle on T.V. and not be able to do anything about it.  He says his main struggles in Lincoln are integration and the English language.    Integration is defined as: A type of cultural adaption in which individuals maintain both their original culture and their daily interactions with other groups. (Martin & Nakayama, 2012, p. 238)  In the article Kusukika says, “The most difficult thing is to be integrated.  When people come, we have many problems.” (Smith, 2011) Not only is he talking about cultural differences but he is also talking about the English language.

This summer I met a girl from Germany named Patricia who was working in New Jersey as an au pair.  She speaks German, English and French.  She said the problems she kept running into when beginning to speak English was the accent.  That caught me off guard because when I think of American English I think we have a lack of accent.  She also told me that in French you have to make sounds in the back of your throat to make the words sound correct and when you are used to accenting words in a certain way its hard to pick up the accent of a different language, “And you have too many damn exceptions.”  Kusukika may be experiencing the same things as Patricia. 

The article mentions that Kusukika had dinner with other refugees, which acts as “social support”, which in theory reduces stress, clarifies uncertainty and increases a sense of identity.  Not only does he have the support of other refugees with similar life stories but he also can find support in his job at the BryanLGH Medical Center.  These two groups provide him support for his cultural beliefs from home and also new cultural norms in Lincoln, NE.

I found this video interesting because there are words people in other countries simply can't pronounce in American English.

Martin, N.J., & Nakayama, K.T. (2012) Intercultural communication in contexts 6^th edition.  NYC.: McGraw Hil

Smith, M. (2011, December 11) Lincoln refugee finds empathy as strife hits the Congo. Journal Starhttp://journalstar.com/news/local/lincoln-refugee-finds-empathy-as-strife-hits-congo/article_6f011d2a-fe13-5d11-bbee-b5de6f5aba59.html

Youtube: How to get an American Accent

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=fvwp&NR=1&v=nwWs4tZYMoE