In many ways, cultures and subcultures act like parents. Cultures may be national, racial, or ethnic. Your school, your religion, and your neighborhood are subcultures. There are many more. Each tries to dictate what people are supposed to do or not do. Often mottoes or repetitive phrases reinforce cultural beliefs. Compliance or lack of compliance with these rules determines whether or not a person fits in.

The problem of fitting in is often experienced by children who move from one school to another or by families who move from one part of a country to another. Their life styles and manners may be so different from those in the new situation that they feel like overly critical parents or rejected children. This is changing with the recognition that we live in a multicultural world that has many advantages over parochialism.

Culture shock can be painful or pleasurable, as any traveler knows. Culture shock happens when change is so extreme or rapid that people feel disoriented and out of place. They don’t yet fit into the new scene. They may hear a different language spoken, notice different expectations, come up against different laws. Suddenly, in addition to their own parents and their past “cultural parent,” they have a new cultural parent to cope with.

The same feelings of shock and stress are often experienced when even minor geographical moves are undertaken. For example, transferring from one school to another can be very traumatic if the school culture is different. So can a move from a rural area to a big city, or vice versa. Also, what may seem like a minor move to parents could be a major move to children.

Being of a particular race, religion, class, or ethnic group in a city where the majority of people are different may also lead to confusion or unhappiness. Being part of a dominant group is usually more comfortable than the opposite. Those of the majority often have more opportunities to pursue life, liberty and personal happiness.

People who immigrate to new countries often experience prejudice. Their previous expectations and lifestyles may not fit into their new life. Some adjust. Others do not. They may be apprehensive or critical of new ways and experience despair, or they may be pushy and try to influence others to accept the values they brought with them. They may be ridiculed, ignored, or discriminated against in life-threatening ways. Jobs may be hard to get, language barriers overwhelming, and the new country that was expected to be a liberating home may instead be a confusing, even restricting, one.

In spite of this, the search for happiness goes on. Many continue their old customs and form new subcultures of like-minded people. Others adjust to the new culture either happily or unhappily, depending on many variables and on comparisons made to “the way it was back home.” Gradually the culture shock disappears.

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