Expertly Crafted Essay On Acculturation Experience

A couple of years ago I was taking part in volunteering project in Spain. There I had to immerse myself into absolutely unknown culture that greatly differed from the one I used to contact on the daily basis. It was a volunteer camp that was aimed at restoring one village’s gardens. Therefore, I was not in the big city, where the majority of people can talk foreign languages, but in the country side, where people mostly knew only their native tongue. Another thing is that I was not only one foreign volunteer; there were people from all around the world, and each of them represented different culture. We all lived in the small house and spent most of our time together. The project lasted for a month and I had to adjust to the culture of the host country and also to the peculiarities of communication in multicultural environment with people of different backgrounds, social classes and ages.
Integration mode best characterizes my acculturation strategy. Definitely, I eagerly immersed in the host culture, because at first it was an interesting experience for me to try the lifestyle of people, who surrounded me and fully understand Spanish culture. Such attitude governed my choice of food, music, sleep time and other aspects that are different from my own culture. However, I still preserved the strong connection with my culture and actually had a chance to truly integrate it into my experience. I was surrounded by people from different countries, who felt the same way as I did, so together we explored the host culture, but maintained our own cultural identities. I cannot imagine being totally absorbed into host culture, as multiculturalism around me reminded me about who I am. What is more, some of the cultural aspects of Spanish lifestyle seemed alien to me, so I preferred to avoid them and behave in the way that I consider to be right in my culture.
Multiculturalism best describes the acculturation orientation adopted by the host culture. First of all, the whole concept of the project was promoting diversity, so I can evaluate the attitudes I received from the foreigners as totally positive. Spanish people were open and inviting for volunteers from the other parts of the world. Generally, Spanish culture is encouraging diversity and multiculturalism, so I did not have many problems adjusting to their culture.
Given such attitudes and acculturation orientation, I believe that my acculturation strategy was successful, as it allowed me to take the most out of my acculturation experience, while preserving strong bonds with my home culture. Additionally, as the host culture promoted multiculturalism, my integration was effective, as people were eager to share their culture, while were also interested in accepting mine as it is.
I think that I used alternation as one of my strategies. There were situations that were totally governed by the dominant culture, so I could not possibly change them. For example, the siesta time in Spain means a few hours of rest during the day, and I was totally not used to it, but as people around me went to sleep I also had to have a rest, because there were no other alternatives. However, when I spent time with other international volunteers I returned to my cultural identity, and such alteration happened all the time.