AP HUG Unit 3.8

What is acculturation?

The process in which people adopt some traits of another culture while maintaining important traits of their original culture.

How does acculturation commonly occur among immigrants?

Immigrants may learn the dominant language and customs needed for work and daily life while continuing to practice their native language traditions and customs at home.

Is acculturation always one-way?

No cultural traits can move in both directions as minority and dominant cultures influence one another.

What is an example of acculturation affecting the dominant culture?

Americans adopting foods and cuisines introduced by Chinese Mexican Indian and other immigrant communities.

What is assimilation?

The process in which people adopt most or all traits of a dominant culture and may lose much of their original cultural identity.

What is the main difference between acculturation and assimilation?

Acculturation involves adopting some outside traits while preserving the original culture whereas assimilation involves adopting most or all of the dominant culture.

What is voluntary assimilation?

Assimilation that occurs when people choose to adopt the dominant culture because they believe doing so will provide social economic or other advantages.

How are German Americans an example of voluntary assimilation?

Anti-German sentiment during the World Wars encouraged many German Americans to minimize their cultural differences and assimilate into broader American culture.

What is forced assimilation?

The coercion of a cultural group into abandoning its own cultural traits and adopting those of the dominant culture.

How were Native Americans subjected to forced assimilation in the United States?

Native American children were forced into boarding schools where many were given American names taught English and pressured or forced to abandon Indigenous languages and traditions.

How did U.S. policy toward Native Americans shift from removal to assimilation?

After forcing many Indigenous peoples onto reservations the government increasingly used education and boarding schools to force them to adopt dominant American culture.

What is syncretism?

The blending of two or more cultural traits or traditions to create a new cultural trait or tradition.

How is Swahili an example of syncretism?

Swahili developed through interaction and borrowing between Indigenous African languages and Arabic along the East African coast.

Why did Swahili develop along the East African coast?

Centuries of Indian Ocean trade created sustained interaction between East African communities and Arabic-speaking Muslim merchants.

How is Sikhism an example of syncretism?

Sikhism developed in Punjab in an environment influenced by Hinduism and Islam while combining some influences with distinct beliefs and practices of its own.

Where is the cultural hearth of Sikhism?

The Punjab region of South Asia.

What is multiculturalism?

A condition in which multiple cultures coexist within a society while maintaining distinct cultural identities without being required to assimilate.

What is the basic idea behind multiculturalism?

Different cultural groups can coexist contribute to society and maintain the traits that make them culturally distinct.

How is the United States an example of multiculturalism?

People from many cultural backgrounds share some common institutions and values while many groups maintain distinctive languages religions foods traditions and celebrations.

What is cultural adaptation?

The process by which a culture changes some practices in response to a new cultural or physical environment while maintaining important parts of its identity.

How can ethnic neighborhoods demonstrate cultural adaptation?

Immigrant groups establish neighborhoods that help them function within a new society while preserving languages foods religions businesses and traditions.

What are examples of ethnic neighborhoods?

Chinatowns Little Italy and Spanish Harlem.

How can ethnic neighborhoods affect the cultural landscape?

They create visible concentrations of distinctive businesses languages religious institutions foods architecture and cultural traditions.

How can ethnic neighborhoods demonstrate sequent occupance?

Different cultural groups leave visible layers on the landscape as neighborhoods change occupants and cultural characteristics over time.

What are Indigenous cultures?

Cultures associated with the original inhabitants of a place and their traditional relationships with the land.

What factors can threaten Indigenous cultures?

Colonialism forced assimilation displacement migration outside economic development and dominant cultural influences.

What is cultural survival?

Efforts to preserve and protect threatened Indigenous cultures languages traditions knowledge and ways of life.

Why can language preservation be important to cultural survival?

Language carries cultural knowledge history values and traditions so language loss can contribute to the loss of cultural identity.

What is the easiest way to distinguish acculturation assimilation syncretism and multiculturalism?

Acculturation adopts some outside traits assimilation adopts most dominant traits syncretism blends cultures into something new and multiculturalism allows distinct cultures to coexist.