“The relatively high speed of the child’s absorption into the new culture can thus create opportunities but also predicaments and tensions.” (Suárez-Orozco, Baolian Qin, Fruja Amthor, 54)

In the chapter on Adolescents from Immigrant Families: Relationships and Adaptation in School, the authors highlighted the surprising result that second- and third-generation immigrants were even less integrated and motivated than those first-generation immigrants. In what they call the “immigrant optimism” factor, the more recent immigrants tend to find more incentive to succeed. It strikes me how difficult it must be for families who have recently immigrated. When I was living in France, I remember feeling frustrated whenever the French would respond to me in English. At the same time, I took it as a challenge to improve my grammar and my French accent. I’m embarrassed to admit that I never thought about how immigrant families are treated here in the States. In the story ‘Maria’ told in the article about her godmother and the experience they had together when performing a bank transaction, I felt the strain created in their relationship. When store clerks, bankers, and school officials, for example, automatically communicate with the younger generation and neglect to give due respect or even a fair chance to communicate with the parent or older person in the situation, I can only imagine how that adult would feel. When learning French, I took the language challenges with native speakers almost like a game. If I had been responsible for a child and the French boutique owners had not responded to me, but instead to my child, I would be enraged. I would feel as if the country and the culture were undermining my authority and assuming that because my French was imperfect that my authority didn’t matter. “The gap between children’s and parents’ acculturation, however, can lead to increasing conflicts and alienation at home.” (Ibid, 55) In what is already a cultural clash between the immigrant’s country of origin and the United States, this seeming lack of respect for the elder accentuates the complicated adaptation process for both immigrants and their children.