Taylor's Reflection #3

Taylor Holzfaster

Intercultural Comm-211

2/3/15

Reflection Paper #3

            After reading chapter 8, there were many points that stuck out to me that I was interested in talking about. There are currently two groups of voluntary travelers: sojourners and immigrants. Sojourners are people who move into new cultural contexts from a limited time and specific purpose, while immigrants are quite different from that. I think it is very interesting how the whole assimilation mode works. I agree that the individual doesn’t want to maintain an isolated cultural identity but wants to maintain relationships with other groups in the new culture. That is a perfect example of people that come from different cultural backgrounds. While they may not want to be in an isolated cultural place that is known for a certain identity, they want to still socialize and get to know other people from different cultures with different cultural backgrounds.

            Other points that interested me were the discussions about separation and integration. While many people have different opinions about these two topics, chapter 8 is very good at explaining how segregation dictated where members of various racial and ethnic groups could live and where they couldn’t live. I think that while these points are very valid our world today needs to not focus so much on segregation and more on trying to become one as a whole.
           Also, cultural adaptation is something that in today's world is very common. It is a long-term process that takes time. There are times that someone can adjust to an environment faster than others, but that is solely based on the extent of the hosts environment and how much a person is willing to open up to new and different things.