DOCSLIB.ORG

Language, Culture and the Jewish Acculturation Of

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Language, Culture and the Jewish Acculturation Of SCHIFF Jewish socialization activities in a Jewish Jews to make multiple lingual adjustments Language, Culture and the Jewish Acculturation setting, home visitations, arrangements for throughout their history. To begin with, of Soviet Jewish Emigres* brit milah, bar and bat mitzvah prepara­ the Aramaic vernacular was known to Jews tions, distribution of an experience with in Babylonian exile over 2,500 years ago. Alvin I. Schiff, Ph.D. Jewish ritual objects and Jewish religious The Biblical books of Daniel and Ezra Executive Vice President, Board of Jewish Education of Greater New York and cultural materials, individual tutelage contain an admixture of Hebrew and in home observance of Shabbat and Jewish Aramaic text. By the fourth century BCE, A vital objective of bilingual-bicultural education for Soviet Jews is to foster a positive holidays, and participation in Jewish com­ the Jews had, in fact, become bilingual. Jewish self-concept while developing Jewish cognition, Jewish language expression and munal programs. The Aramaic language has had a pro­ Jewish life skills. People who view themselves as being accepted, respected and loved are The single most important task for all found influence on Hebrew. The word, prone to develop a positive self-concept. Providing a receptive, respectful and loving Jewish immigrants, regardless of age and ulpan, the method for teaching Hebrew as environment must be the first goal of Judaic instruction. background, is to learn the English lan­ a second language, is an Aramaic word. guage. Teaching English as a Second The term, shiddur, radio broadcast, also The Challenge into the American society with all that this Language (ESL) can also be a useful derives from an Aramaic root. The extent strategy for acculturating Russian Jews to The American Jewish community is called process implies. They must learn to com­ of the use of Aramaic is demonstrated by Jewishness and Jewish living. This is es­ upon from time to time to develop response municate in English, they must find housing, the fact that the Gemara (Talmud), the pecially important since all Russian immi­ post-Biblical magnum opus of Jewish life, mechanisms to meet new needs. These make vocational readjustments and obtain grants, young and old, participate in ESL is written largely in this medium. The mechanisms often require massive funding, suitable jobs. programs shortly after arrival, either as Hebrew manuscript letter was also sub­ significant restructuring of programs and For the immigrants being Jewish means part of their elementary or high school stantially influenced by Aramaic. the development of new major services. learning to live as Jews. This requires that curriculum or as part of their adult orienta­ The recent influx of Soviet-Jewish immi­ they be socialized into the Jewish way of Since the initial Babylonian exilic ex­ tion program. grants to the U.S. necessitates such a life. They must acquire the skills of Jewish perience, new language shock and new response. During the last five years 66,480 living—learn about the Jewish community, For adults the ESL time frame is crucial. culture shock requiring multiple lingual Russian Jews migrated to this country. Of become familiar with the Jewish calendar, As long as the Soviet emigres are finan­ and multiple cultural adjustments became these, almost half (28,277) have settled in develop a sense of Jewish identity, and cially dependent upon the Jewish com­ a part of Jewish diasporic existence. The New York. Other relatively large concen­ learn to participate in Jewish religious and munity, they participate regularly in ESL Jews were at home in Arabic, for example, trations of Russian Jews have settled in Jewish communal activities. classes. During this time, they are actually before the rise of Islam. In the eighth a captive audience. Once they find a job century many Jews in Moslem countries Chicago (4,895), Los Angeles (4,260), and To accomplish all this simultaneously in and permanent housing, there is no guaran­ adopted Arabic as their mother tongue. Philadelphia (3,016). One hundred and a relatively short period of time is a tall tee that the Jewish community will be able The timeless contributions of Maimonides fifty-four other Jewish communities each order. Here is where the American Jewish to gain their attention for any length of were written in both Arabic and Hebrew. have received between a handful and several community has a unique opportunity to time. Experience has shown that attrition Moreh Nevukhim (Guide to the Perplexed) hundred immigrants. The largest annual demonstrate its resourcefulness. Unfor­ in ESL programs occurs after families are was penned in Arabic so that all Jews could influx occurred in 1979 when almost 29,000 tunately, we did not prepare adequately for settled and are no longer financially de­ readily understand it. His voluminous com­ Russian immigrants were resettled in the this large task. Nevertheless, several sig­ pendent upon the organized Jewish com­ pendium of Jewish law, the Mishneh Torah, United States and Canada. nificant efforts have been made in various munity. It is for this reason that I feel it was written in Hebrew. Yehudah Halevi's The challenge that these immigrants hold communities to acculturate the new immi­ absolutely essential to exploit ESL for philosophical treatise, Kuzari, is in Arabic. out for the American Jewish community is grants. It is too early, yet, to assess the inculcating Jewish attitudes and values On the other hand, his poetry was written obvious. Denied their right to practice the long-range effect of these efforts. from the very beginning of the ESL accul­ in Hebrew. Jewish religion, the immigrants have The Jewish responses must be provided turation process. ostensibly left the Soviet Union to be able in different ways for different age groups In addition to Arabic, the wandering Jews in the Middle Ages, post-medieval to live freely as Jews and pursue Jewish and different types of Jews. The Jewish Multilingualism and the Jews interests without being oppressed. attitudes and Jewish backgrounds of the and contemporary periods, have been at This means that Russian-Jewish immi­ immigrants will vary, sometimes greatly, In addressing this challenge, it seems home in Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, grants have to make multiple adjustments. according to their family history and areas appropriate, at first, to provide an historical Greek, Italian, French, German, Hun­ In the first place, they have to be socialized of residence. The responses necessarily frame of reference for our discussion. Bi- garian, Polish, Russian, and English. lingualism and multilingualism are synono- How did Jews make linguistic and cul­ * Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Con­ embrace a variety oi cognitive and affective mous with Jewish tradition. The "wandering tural adjustments to the various lands of ference of Jewish Communal Service, Denver, activities: Judaic instruction and informal Jew" syndrome has made it imperative for their dispersion? One method of adjustment Colorado, May 27, 1980. education for children and adults, Russian- 45 44 JOURNAL OF JEWISH COMMUNAL SERVICE SCHIFF has been the co-opting of other languages acquisition of the ability to speak in the over, almost all of them have no knowledge should be weaned from use of the mother into Jewish culture. Judeo-Arabic, is a lingua franca of the adopted country. This of a Jewish language. Some of the elderly language as the learners become adept in prime example of this type of adjustment. was motivated by the immigrants' need to immigrants understand Yiddish but seem English. However, even the transitionists During the 9th, 10th and 11th centuries, the use the new language in pursuit of a ashamed to use it. The openness of U.S. agree that instruction in the mother tongue Jews in North Africa, the Near East and livelihood. They learned to speak the society, on the other hand, is significantly and culture should not be totally discon­ Spain spoke Arabic, but did not read this language by using it, without any formal different than the social milieu of the other tinued. In addition to the maintenance and language. As time wore on, they added a training. Some emigres learned to read the countries of Jewish dispersions. Moreover, transition approaches, the practice of en­ goodly number of Hebrew words and ex­ new language. Fewer still learned to write the previous 19th and 20th century Jewish richment introduces new cultural and edu­ pressions to the Arabic dialect and began in it. immigrant experiences in America estab­ cational elements in the native language of to write it in Hebrew script. Thus, Judeo- In medieval and contemporary times, lished patterns for new immigrant Ameri­ the learners. Arabic was born. Judeo-Arabic was popu­ Jews were generally trilingual. They used canization not conducive to the develop­ In this context, Russian-Jewish immi­ lar among Jews until the end of the 13th Ladino or Yiddish to converse among ment of a new Jewish jargon. grants pose a special challenge. Cultural century. themselves and to communicate in writing. The Jewish languages or jargons of pre­ linguistic education of Russian-Jewish They used the lingua franca to do business Ladino is another example of co-opting vious eras—Judeo-Arabic, Ladino and immigrants in the United States must ac­ with their non-Jewish neighbors. Hebrew a foreign language into Jewish culture. Yiddish—helped the Jewish immigrants complish two separate goals—acculturation was their language of study and prayer. This Spanish-Jewish language, written in maintain their Jewish connection in the to the American society and the develop­ The learned Jews also wrote in Hebrew. Hebrew characters, was developed after new countries of residence via their rooted- ment of a sub-group cultural identity. In the Spanish expulsion by Spanish and Those knowledgeable in the Talmud were ness in Jewish literature, Jewish tradition the process of acculturation, the Russian Portuguese exiles who spread to various quadra-lingual as they mastered the and Jewish memories.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Suppression of Jewish Culture by the Soviet Union's Emigration
    \\server05\productn\B\BIN\23-1\BIN104.txt unknown Seq: 1 18-JUL-05 11:26 A STRUGGLE TO PRESERVE ETHNIC IDENTITY: THE SUPPRESSION OF JEWISH CULTURE BY THE SOVIET UNION’S EMIGRATION POLICY BETWEEN 1945-1985 I. SOCIAL AND CULTURAL STATUS OF JEWS IN THE SOVIET SOCIETY BEFORE AND AFTER THE WAR .................. 159 R II. BEFORE THE BORDERS WERE CLOSED: SOVIET EMIGRATION POLICY UNDER STALIN (1945-1947) ......... 163 R III. CLOSING OF THE BORDER: CESSATION OF JEWISH EMIGRATION UNDER STALIN’S REGIME .................... 166 R IV. THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES: SOVIET EMIGRATION POLICY UNDER KHRUSHCHEV AND BREZHNEV .................... 168 R V. CONCLUSION .............................................. 174 R I. SOCIAL AND CULTURAL STATUS OF JEWS IN THE SOVIET SOCIETY BEFORE AND AFTER THE WAR Despite undergoing numerous revisions, neither the Soviet Constitu- tion nor the Soviet Criminal Code ever adopted any laws or regulations that openly or implicitly permitted persecution of or discrimination against members of any minority group.1 On the surface, the laws were always structured to promote and protect equality of rights and status for more than one hundred different ethnic groups. Since November 15, 1917, a resolution issued by the Second All-Russia Congress of the Sovi- ets called for the “revoking of all and every national and national-relig- ious privilege and restriction.”2 The Congress also expressly recognized “the right of the peoples of Russia to free self-determination up to seces- sion and the formation of an independent state.” Identical resolutions were later adopted by each of the 15 Soviet Republics. Furthermore, Article 124 of the 1936 (Stalin-revised) Constitution stated that “[f]reedom of religious worship and freedom of anti-religious propaganda is recognized for all citizens.” 3 1 See generally W.E.
    [Show full text]
  • The Model Minority: Asian American Students and the Relationships
    The Vermont Connection Volume 31 Think Globally, Act Locally, Care Personally: Connecting Personal and Professional Article 16 Discoveries in Student Affairs January 2010 The oM del Minority: Asian American Students and the Relationships Between Acculturation to Western Values, Family Pressures and Mental Health Concerns Nathan Panelo Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/tvc Part of the Higher Education Administration Commons Recommended Citation Panelo, Nathan (2010) "The odeM l Minority: Asian American Students and the Relationships Between Acculturation to Western Values, Family Pressures and Mental Health Concerns," The Vermont Connection: Vol. 31 , Article 16. Available at: https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/tvc/vol31/iss1/16 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Education and Social Services at ScholarWorks @ UVM. It has been accepted for inclusion in The eV rmont Connection by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks @ UVM. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Panelo • 147 The Model Minority Student: Asian American Students and the Relationships Between Acculturation to Western Values, Family Pressures, and Mental Health Concerns Nathan Divino Panelo As the Asian American student population grows in United States (U.S.) higher education, so does the demand for resources on campus. One major concern facing Asian Americans today is the cultural pres- sure from home which often leads to mental health concerns. Many Asian American students acculturate to Western values in United States colleges, and in doing so, sacrifice part of their traditional iden- tities. As Asian American students acculturate to Western values, it becomes difficult for them to relate to their immigrant parents or first- generation Asian American parents.
    [Show full text]
  • Aliyah and Settlement Process?
    Jewish Women in Pre-State Israel HBI SERIES ON JEWISH WOMEN Shulamit Reinharz, General Editor Joyce Antler, Associate Editor Sylvia Barack Fishman, Associate Editor The HBI Series on Jewish Women, created by the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, pub- lishes a wide range of books by and about Jewish women in diverse contexts and time periods. Of interest to scholars and the educated public, the HBI Series on Jewish Women fills major gaps in Jewish Studies and in Women and Gender Studies as well as their intersection. For the complete list of books that are available in this series, please see www.upne.com and www.upne.com/series/BSJW.html. Ruth Kark, Margalit Shilo, and Galit Hasan-Rokem, editors, Jewish Women in Pre-State Israel: Life History, Politics, and Culture Tova Hartman, Feminism Encounters Traditional Judaism: Resistance and Accommodation Anne Lapidus Lerner, Eternally Eve: Images of Eve in the Hebrew Bible, Midrash, and Modern Jewish Poetry Margalit Shilo, Princess or Prisoner? Jewish Women in Jerusalem, 1840–1914 Marcia Falk, translator, The Song of Songs: Love Lyrics from the Bible Sylvia Barack Fishman, Double or Nothing? Jewish Families and Mixed Marriage Avraham Grossman, Pious and Rebellious: Jewish Women in Medieval Europe Iris Parush, Reading Jewish Women: Marginality and Modernization in Nineteenth-Century Eastern European Jewish Society Shulamit Reinharz and Mark A. Raider, editors, American Jewish Women and the Zionist Enterprise Tamar Ross, Expanding the Palace of Torah: Orthodoxy and Feminism Farideh Goldin, Wedding Song: Memoirs of an Iranian Jewish Woman Elizabeth Wyner Mark, editor, The Covenant of Circumcision: New Perspectives on an Ancient Jewish Rite Rochelle L.
    [Show full text]
  • The Hebrew-Jewish Disconnection
    Bridgewater State University Virtual Commons - Bridgewater State University Master’s Theses and Projects College of Graduate Studies 5-2016 The eH brew-Jewish Disconnection Jacey Peers Follow this and additional works at: http://vc.bridgew.edu/theses Part of the Reading and Language Commons Recommended Citation Peers, Jacey. (2016). The eH brew-Jewish Disconnection. In BSU Master’s Theses and Projects. Item 32. Available at http://vc.bridgew.edu/theses/32 Copyright © 2016 Jacey Peers This item is available as part of Virtual Commons, the open-access institutional repository of Bridgewater State University, Bridgewater, Massachusetts. THE HEBREW-JEWISH DISCONNECTION Submitted by Jacey Peers Department of Graduate Studies In partial fulfillment of the requirements For the Degree of Master of Arts in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages Bridgewater State University Spring 2016 Content and Style Approved By: ___________________________________________ _______________ Dr. Joyce Rain Anderson, Chair of Thesis Committee Date ___________________________________________ _______________ Dr. Anne Doyle, Committee Member Date ___________________________________________ _______________ Dr. Julia (Yulia) Stakhnevich, Committee Member Date 1 Acknowledgements I would like to thank my mom for her support throughout all of my academic endeavors; even when she was only half listening, she was always there for me. I truly could not have done any of this without you. To my dad, who converted to Judaism at 56, thank you for showing me that being Jewish is more than having a certain blood that runs through your veins, and that there is hope for me to feel like I belong in the community I was born into, but have always felt next to.
    [Show full text]
  • Courtesy of Theyood Family TABLE of CONTENTS
    Courtesy of TheYood Family TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 3 MIGRATIONS 4 Daniel Soyer: Goldene Medine, Treyfene Medine: Judaism Survives Migration to America 5 Deborah Dash Moore: The Meanings of Migration: American Jews, Eldridge Street and Neighborhoods 9 PRACTICE 13 Riv-Ellen Prell: A Culture of Order: Decorum and the Eldridge Street Synagogue 14 Jeffrey Gurock: Closing the Americanization Gap between the Eldridge Street Synagogue’s Leaders 19 and Downtown’s Rabbis ENCOUNTERS 23 Jeffrey Shandler: A Tale of Two Cantors: Pinhas Minkowski and Yosele Rosenblatt 24 Tony Michels: The Jewish Ghetto Meets its Neighbors 29 PRESERVATION 34 Samuel Gruber: The Choices We Make: The Eldridge Street Synagogue and Historic Preservation 35 Marilyn Chiat: Saving and Praising the Past 40 MUSEUM AT ELDRIDGE STREET | ACADEMICANGLES 3 he Eldridge Street Synagogue is a National Historic Landmark, the first major house of worship built by East European Jews in America. When it opened in September of 1887 it was an experiment, a response to the immigrants’desire to practice Orthodox Judaism, and to do so in America, their new Promised Land. Today the Eldridge Street Synagogue is Tthe only building on the Lower East Side—once the largest Jewish city in the world—earmarked for broad and public exploration of the American Jewish experience. The Museum at Eldridge Street researches the history of the building, uncovering new ways and stories to bring the building and its history to life. Learning about the congregants and their history ties us to broader trends on the Lower East Side and in American history. To help explore these trends, the Museum at Eldridge Street asks leading scholars to lend their expertise.
    [Show full text]
  • Confronting Antisemitism in Modern Media, the Legal and Political Worlds an End to Antisemitism!
    Confronting Antisemitism in Modern Media, the Legal and Political Worlds An End to Antisemitism! Edited by Armin Lange, Kerstin Mayerhofer, Dina Porat, and Lawrence H. Schiffman Volume 5 Confronting Antisemitism in Modern Media, the Legal and Political Worlds Edited by Armin Lange, Kerstin Mayerhofer, Dina Porat, and Lawrence H. Schiffman ISBN 978-3-11-058243-7 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-067196-4 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-067203-9 DOI https://10.1515/9783110671964 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. For details go to https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Library of Congress Control Number: 2021931477 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2021 Armin Lange, Kerstin Mayerhofer, Dina Porat, Lawrence H. Schiffman, published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston The book is published with open access at www.degruyter.com Cover image: Illustration by Tayler Culligan (https://dribbble.com/taylerculligan). With friendly permission of Chicago Booth Review. Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com TableofContents Preface and Acknowledgements IX LisaJacobs, Armin Lange, and Kerstin Mayerhofer Confronting Antisemitism in Modern Media, the Legal and Political Worlds: Introduction 1 Confronting Antisemitism through Critical Reflection/Approaches
    [Show full text]
  • Jewish Culture in the Christian World James Jefferson White University of New Mexico - Main Campus
    University of New Mexico UNM Digital Repository History ETDs Electronic Theses and Dissertations Fall 11-13-2017 Jewish Culture in the Christian World James Jefferson White University of New Mexico - Main Campus Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/hist_etds Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation White, James Jefferson. "Jewish Culture in the Christian World." (2017). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/hist_etds/207 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Electronic Theses and Dissertations at UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in History ETDs by an authorized administrator of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. James J White Candidate History Department This thesis is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication: Approved by the Thesis Committee: Sarah Davis-Secord, Chairperson Timothy Graham Michael Ryan i JEWISH CULTURE IN THE CHRISTIAN WORLD by JAMES J WHITE PREVIOUS DEGREES BACHELORS THESIS Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Masters of Arts History The University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico December 2017 ii JEWISH CULTURE IN THE CHRISTIAN WORLD BY James White B.S., History, University of North Texas, 2013 M.A., History, University of New Mexico, 2017 ABSTRACT Christians constantly borrowed the culture of their Jewish neighbors and adapted it to Christianity. This adoption and appropriation of Jewish culture can be fit into three phases. The first phase regarded Jewish religion and philosophy. From the eighth century to the thirteenth century, Christians borrowed Jewish religious exegesis and beliefs in order to expand their own understanding of Christian religious texts.
    [Show full text]
  • Mental Health Clinicians Perspectives on the Role Of
    MENTAL HEALTH CLINICIANS PERSPECTIVES ON THE ROLE OF ACCULTURATION IN THE PROVISION OF SERVICES TO LATINOS: A GROUNDED THEORY EXPLORATION by GABRIELA SEHINKMAN Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Social Welfare Program Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY May, 2020 i CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES We hereby approve the dissertation of Gabriela Sehinkman candidate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy*. Committee Co-Chair Dr. David Hussey Committee Co-Chair Dr. Anna Maria Santiago Committee Member Dr. Elizabeth Tracy Committee Member Dr. Susan Painter Date of Defense December 9, 2019 *We also certify that written approval has been obtained for any proprietary material contained therein. ii Table of Contents List of Tables .................................................................................................................... vii List of Figures .................................................................................................................. viii Acknowledgments ............................................................................................................. ix Abstract .............................................................................................................................. xi Chapter 1 : Introduction ...................................................................................................... 1 The Role of Acculturation in
    [Show full text]
  • Culture and Sustainability: Environmental Anthropology in the Anthropocene
    PERSPECTIVES: AN OPEN INTRODUCTION TO CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY SECOND EDITION Nina Brown, Thomas McIlwraith, Laura Tubelle de González 2020 American Anthropological Association 2300 Clarendon Blvd, Suite 1301 Arlington, VA 22201 ISBN Print: 978-1-931303-67-5 ISBN Digital: 978-1-931303-66-8 http://perspectives.americananthro.org/ This book is a project of the Society for Anthropology in Community Colleges (SACC) http://sacc.americananthro.org/ and our parent organization, the American Anthropological Association (AAA). Please refer to the website for a complete table of contents and more information about the book. Perspectives: An Open Introduction to Cultural Anthropology by Nina Brown, Thomas McIlwraith, Laura Tubelle de González is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted. Under this CC BY-NC 4.0 copyright license you are free to: Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material Under the following terms: Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes. 1414 CULTURE AND SUSTAINABILITY: ENVIRONMENTAL ANTHROPOLOGY IN THE ANTHROPOCENE Christian T. Palmer, Windward Community College [email protected] Learning Objectives • Identify the methods and theories anthropologists use to examine human interactions with the environment. • Define political ecology and explain its relationship to anthropology. • Describe the Anthropocene and discuss how anthropology contributes to understanding the human role in environmental destruction.
    [Show full text]
  • The Power of Silent Voices: Women in the Syrian Jewish Musical Tradition
    © Ashgate Publishing Ltd Chapter 11 The Power of Silent Voices: Women in the Syrian Jewish Musical Tradition Kay Kaufman Shelemay Introduction In much of the Jewish and Islamic Middle East, women have been constrained by religious precept from participating publicly in musical performance. This chapter explores one such case study in detail – the Syrian Jewish paraliturgical hymn tradition known as the pizmonim (sing. pizmon) – and seeks to amplify women’s otherwise ‘silent voices’ in order to achieve awww.ashgate.com fuller understanding of power relations within that tradition.1 While the pizmonim, and the broader world of Syrian Jewish musical and ritual life which these songs anchor, are generally perceived as exclusively male domains, I will argue that women occupy roles vital to the processes of transmission and maintenance of tradition. My approach will draw in part on a theoretical framework forwww.ashgate.com evaluating power relations proposed by James P. Scott, who uses the term ‘public transcript’ as ‘a shorthand way of describing the open interaction between subordinates and those who dominate’ (Scott 1990:2). Alongside a public transcript, Scott suggests that there exists www.ashgate.com This chapter is dedicated to the memory of Adrienne Fried Block, pioneer in the study of women and music, and of Johanna Spector, pioneer of Jewish musical studies. 1 The research process for this project began as a collaborative one with my then graduate students at New York University in the mid-1980s. We worked closely in a team effort with musicians of the Syrian community, almost all amateur aficionados of the pizmon traditionwww.ashgate.com (See Shelemay 1988).
    [Show full text]
  • The Role of Acculturation and White Supremacist Ideology
    American Psychologist © 2019 American Psychological Association 2019, Vol. 74, No. 1, 143–155 0003-066X/19/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/amp0000368 Racial Trauma, Microaggressions, and Becoming Racially Innocuous: The Role of Acculturation and White Supremacist Ideology William Ming Liu and Rossina Zamora Liu Yunkyoung Loh Garrison, Ji Youn Cindy Kim, University of Maryland Laurence Chan, Yu C. S. Ho, and Chi W. Yeung The University of Iowa Acculturation theories often describe how individuals in the United States adopt and incor- porate dominant cultural values, beliefs, and behaviors such as individualism and self- reliance. Theorists tend to perceive dominant cultural values as “accessible to everyone,” even though some dominant cultural values, such as preserving White racial status, are reserved for White people. In this article, the authors posit that White supremacist ideology is suffused within dominant cultural values, connecting the array of cultural values into a coherent whole and bearing with it an explicit status for White people and people of color. Consequently, the authors frame acculturation as a continuing process wherein some people of color learn explicitly via racism, microaggressions, and racial trauma about their racial positionality; White racial space; and how they are supposed to accommodate White people’s needs, status, and emotions. The authors suggest that acculturation may mean that the person of color learns to avoid racial discourse to minimize eliciting White fragility and distress. Moreover, acculturation allows the person of color to live in proximity to White people because the person of color has become unthreatening and racially innocuous. The authors provide recommendations for research and clinical practice focused on understanding the connections between ideology, racism, microaggressions and ways to create psychological healing.
    [Show full text]
  • Flexible Acculturation
    FLEXIBLE ACCULTURATION HSIANG-CHIEH LEE National Science and Technology Center for Disaster Reduction, Taiwan “Flexibility” has become an important concept in studies of globalization and transnationalism. Most academic discus- sions fall into the literature of global capitalist restructuring: e.g., Piore and Sabel’s (1984) notion of flexible specialization and David Harvey’s concept (1991) of flexible accumulation. These discussions are centered on economic production and market logics. Theoretical discussions of flexibility about other regimes of power — such as cultural reproduction, the nation- state and family — are relatively insufficient. In this paper, I explore the concept of “flexible acculturation,” first proposed by Jan Nederveen-Pieterse (2007), to show a cultural aspect of transnational flexibility. I situate my discussion in the literature of transmigration studies and define flexible acculturation as having four important virtues: (1) it has diverse social players, rather than just political and economic elites; (2) it refers to interac- tions, not just differences; (3) it involves multiple processes; and (4) it is not just about agency but also about social regulations. These definitions help to explain why flexible acculturation is different from other concepts that have been proposed. I further argue that definitions of important social actors are contingent on a specific set of flexible acculturation processes. Social ac- tors discussed in this paper include governments, the public, transmigrants, and women. “Flexibility” has become an important concept in studies of globalization and transnationalism, especially after David Harvey’s Hsiang-Chieh Lee (PhD, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2008) is a senior assistant research fellow in National Science and Technology Center for Disaster Reduction in Taiwan.
    [Show full text]