International Students’ Struggles and Important Ideas to Think About
Hi everyone! This is Erika from Japan.
In this testimonial, I would like to mention some takeaways I got from the interviews that we, ISAB board members, held last quarter. I have two main things I want to discuss here. I had an opportunity to interview two students from the international community at UCSB.
The first one was that my interviewees both answered that they have not experienced any personal attacks or discouragements at UCSB for being international. This was very nice to hear as being on the board for 4 years, I have heard multiple cases where they were discriminated against or treated poorly for being international. However, in spite of not facing direct discrimination, they both were mentioning that they have faced or seen international students struggle with internal issues rather than external issues. Some examples were: they struggle to make friends because they are embarrassed by their accent or they are scared to ask general questions because they think domestic students will know the answer and it would look like they are stupid for asking those questions. According to Maeda, international students “reported that fear, embarrassment, social isolation… were barriers” to participating in class (142). In other words, there are so many internal conflicts we have as international students when it comes to socializing or participating in class. However, I have heard from many international students that once you get over that fear, the people around you are usually going to be accepting. I try to think of it this way: if American students are trying to learn your language or culture, would you make fun of them for having an American accent? Or would you discriminate against them because they ask simple questions? I think my answer would be, no, and I would try to help them understand rather than treating them differently. I think most domestic students, faculty, and TAs are the same. So you do not need to hesitate to communicate with people you want to befriend or ask the simplest questions towards your teachers. I thought this was a very nice message to send out to all international students.
The other theme I thought was interesting is that the experiences of international students who came to the U.S. from college and before college are very different. For example, students who came to the US for college go into college, needing to adapt to the culture, the language, on top of college life which is a huge transition. On the other hand, students who came to America from high school know better about American culture and how social dynamics work in terms of friendships and other relationships. So, they have fewer transitions to make, and therefore, they are more willing to interact with people with confidence. Research shows that significant correlations were found between students’ levels of acculturation and stigma tolerance and confidence (Zhang & Dixon). Acculturation means how well you adjust to a different culture. Therefore, the more international students adjust to American culture, the better they can handle the stigma of their culture which many international students fear, and that leads to their confidence. Therefore, when thinking about international students in mind, we need to think about how well each individual has adjusted to the culture too. If international students are struggling to socialize or communicate, it might not be because of the language barrier or because they are an introvert. It might be because they are not confident in themselves because they are struggling to adapt to American culture, and I think this is important for everyone to keep in mind.
Thank you for reading this post!
Maeda, Junko. “Self-Efficacy Reduces Impediments to Classroom Discussion for International Students: Fear, Embarrassment, Social Isolation, Judgment, and Discrimination.” IAFOR Journal of Education, vol. 5, no. 2, 2017, doi:10.22492/ije.5.2.07.
Zhang, Naijian, and David N. Dixon. “Acculturation and Attitudes of Asian International Students Toward Seeking Psychological Help.” Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development, vol. 31, no. 3, 2003, pp. 205–222., doi:10.1002/j.2161-1912.2003.tb00544.x.
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