Friendship in America

 

I first came to the United States when I was eighteen years old. With the lack of communication skills in English, a strong accent, and shyness; I found it hard to make friends with American peers at my school. Furthermore, I lived with my uncle and aunt instead of a host family to save money. Thus, it was challenging for me to improve my English skills and adapt to the American culture since we communicate mostly in Vietnamese. I found this article relevant because friendship does play a crucial part in international students’ adaptation to the new country and helping international students overcome psychological, emotional, and physical obstacles while studying abroad. 

The study was conducted on 80 U.S. American students at a mid-size Southern university. Before showing the method and result in the analysis of the study, the authors pointed out during the literature review part that multicultural personal characteristics, including “cultural empathy, open-mindedness, social initiative, emotional stability, and flexibility,” are important factors that contribute to the success of friendship between native and international students. I support these five traits since the students need to be open-minded to start a conversation with someone who has different cultural backgrounds, beliefs, and languages. It is common that people are more comfortable being around people that are similar to them, and thus, reluctant to talk to someone from a different country. These traits can serve as” motivation” for natives to befriend international students. 

Although I expected those with international friends to have higher cultural awareness, the results come out different. Both students with or without international friends have small gaps in cultural sympathy awareness variance. However, students with no international friends have higher racism and intercultural communication apprehension towards international peers. Although 47% of students report that they have international friends, they do not contact them on a frequent basis. I can relate to this because I have friends in college, but most of them are from my class or my projects, thus, we barely contact each other after the class is over. The main reason why we became friends was that we can gain benefits from each other in class, but we do not share mutual interests or hobbies outside of school. Furthermore, as the article also mentioned, international students are more comfortable around people with the same ethnicity as them since they share the same culture and language, which makes communication easier. Lastly, I noticed that this study also mentioned Greek life such as sororities and fraternities. Members of Greek affiliation report that they do not have many international friends since they prefer being friends with their brothers or sisters. Indeed, I am not blaming all native students. International students are reluctant to join Greek life as the culture is very different. For example, Asian students are taught not to party and study extremely hard while in the U.S. This is in contrast to Greek life as the members often hold events, meetings, and parties. 

This article gives a lot of insights regarding the effects that friendship has on international students and domestic students. Lastly, although UCSB has done a great job advocating for international students, I believe that OISS can develop programs such as mentor or buddy programs, where new students are paired with older students to help them prepare for a smooth transition between different cultures and countries.

Works Cited: 

Williams, Christina T, and Laura R Johnson. "Why Can’t We Be Friends?: Multicultural Attitudes and Friendships with International Students." International Journal of Intercultural Relations 35.1 (2011): 41-48. Web.