Upon their initial relocation, the participants described experiencing culture shock – a sense of anxiety or discomfort resulting from being immersed in an unfamiliar cultural context with different systems of meaning (Adler, 1975). The participants were jarred by the vast
changes that the host culture imposed upon them, as well as their newfound status as “outsiders” as they attempted to integrate and engage with non-Aboriginal people. They were also shocked by the racism they encountered in their new contexts. The sub-themes identified were (a) feeling overwhelmed by change, (b) living with non-Aboriginal billets, (c) lacking meaningful
engagement from host culture members, (d) dealing with racism, and (e) confronting attitudes that Aboriginal people can’t “make it”.
Feeling overwhelmed by change. Almost all of the participants discussed the vast changes that relocation within a new cultural context brought into their lives, and how overwhelmed they were at the prospect of having to navigate this new world alone. The participants described their experiences being overwhelmed as the sense that everything was moving and shifting around them in unfamiliar ways, while they remained immobile, unable to move into the flow of daily life. Through their accounts, the participants revealed how they were challenged by the immediate necessity to move past their culture shock and actively engage in the precarious process of second-culture learning, without any sense of direction. This
experience was articulated by Natasha as she explained why she drew a stop sign and an array of vivid colors and scribbles around the central image of a tree in her mandala (see Figure 3):
I kinda went to the emotions that I felt when I first went there. I remember not wanting to be there, like once we were in [city] driving down the last stretch before we got to the school. I just remember wanting to turn around and go back. And I remember seeing three crosses on top of a hill; I guess they’re supposed to be comforting, but it was really creepy to me. I guess I just felt really out of my element... The whole summer [prior to relocating] I’d been really excited and I was like yeah, it’s going to be great – because I thought it was going to be different, it’s gonna work. And then getting there, it was kind of a shock. I hadn’t really thought about being by myself and dealing with a lot of different things, like having different beliefs and everything being just so chaotic and uncomfortable. I hadn’t thought about those things until I got there... Then it kind of felt like, once my parents were gone, I was by myself in the middle of [city] with nothing. That made me not want to be there, just because everything familiar was gone and I just felt like it was chaos all around me. That’s how I picture it, like I’m stuck in the middle, I’m rooted with this tree into the ground and I can’t move. (Natasha: 22 year old female)
Figure 3. Mandala created by Natasha.
Natasha noted that she was not prepared for all of the changes that accompanied her relocation and the feelings she had of being completely out of place in the Euro-Canadian context.
Accordingly, she was hit with an unexpected sense of fear and paralysis as she moved into the host environment and was confronted with the “chaos” of her shifting cultural realities. Jessica, a younger high school athlete, also highlighted these feelings of chaos and paralysis as she
reflected on her drawing of a highway flanked by a “blur” of colors on each side (see Figure 4): That represents the sadness and emotions. You’re looking back through the car window behind you and you’re like “Oh my god, I’m driving away [from reserve] for the first time!” ...You don’t realize how hard and different it is until you actually get there. When I got to my first day of school it was like, I’ve never rode a bus in my life because I always got driven to school. So I had to learn how to get on the bus and get the bus times. Then of course you’re shaking all day and you’re worried; What if my locker doesn’t work? What if I have to go to the office? And of course everybody is going around talking to their friends and you’re just standing there and you almost feel like everybody is moving around you and you’re the only one standing still. It’s like those movies where you just see everything as a blur and then there you are standing there like, “What am I doing here? I don’t even know what I’m doing. Where do I start?” It was really scary. (Jessica: 15 year old female)
These participants highlighted the chaos that they perceived around them as their cultural realities shifted and moved, as well as the fears and uncertainties that took root inside of them and simultaneously made them feel immobilized in their host contexts. Caught off guard by the reality of acculturation, these individuals became overwhelmed at the prospect of having to mobilize themselves within their new surroundings and begin navigating this unfamiliar territory without any insight into how to do so or where to start. They realized they were on their own in having to figure out how to adapt to a place that they felt inherently out of place in. The
participants’ drawings of multi-colored “blurs” and scribbles provide a further sense of chaotic movement, helping to illustrate how they experienced acculturation as a dynamic, moving process which cannot be readily predicted or prepared for (Chirkov, 2009).
Living with non-Aboriginal billets. A number of participants ended up living with non- Aboriginal billets (host families who offer room and board to athletes who are relocated away from their homes), in homes where they experienced an ongoing sense of discomfort. The participants noted how they were constantly unsettled by the external pressure they felt to conform to the in-house norms and expectations of their host families, and the feeling that they were unable to be their true selves in these environments. In particular they emphasized concerns around having to adjust to different etiquettes regarding meal times with their billets, dealing with different billet family dynamics, having different rules around their time outside of the house, and managing expectations that they not spend too much time alone in their roooms. These situations contributed to the participants’ sense of cultural shock in that they were being immersed in new home environments that were vastly different from their “real” homes on- reserve, and that challenged them in terms of having to renegotiate how (or if) they expressed their cultural ways of being. To articulate the challenges of these new living arrangements,
Jessica reflected on the image she created of her on-reserve home (see Figure 4):
The house is just kind of like, when you’re trying to sleep and you close your eyes and you just wish that you could wake up there, at home, and see – Like, I have a Bon Jovi poster that hangs above my bed at my old house that my dad put up when I was like seven because I was obsessed with Bon Jovi. I would look at that every morning. And it’s still there to this day. So it’s just the little things at home that just make it home... And to me, that home represents somewhere where you don’t always feel like you’re being judged by what you’re doing. You know, if you do something at home it’s going to be natural... You don’t feel like somebody different is just watching you. You don’t have to worry “I wonder what they’re thinking? I wonder if I spend too much time in my
bedroom? Do I have to go down and visit with them for a certain amount of time?”... Moving here [to city] I was really, really uncomfortable all year. I just always felt like I was always being judged, no matter what I did. If I stayed in my room too long [billet] would always make comments about how when her brother lived with her he would stay in his room really long. Like, “He just sits on his Facebook all the time. I don’t know what you do in your room.” And it’s like oh, shit! I don’t know if she’s giving me subtle hints that she wants me to be off my computer or get out of my room more. So then I tried to come out and sit there, but I couldn’t handle it. The kids were always yelling and playing around on the floor. And it’s like sometimes I just need time to myself, especially when there’s a lot of noise... It just was not home at all, because you never have to put on a fake mask for anybody at home; it’s just, that’s you. (Jessica: 15 year old female) For Jessica, living with a billet family in a new cultural context meant she had to mask her true self and change her behaviours in order to meet external expectations. The cultural norms and
expectations of the host environment seemed to subvert her Aboriginal identity and ways of being and made her cling more deeply to her notion of home, as illustrated in her mandala. Jordan acknowledged similar challenges while living with non-Aboriginal billets, but shared a somewhat different perspective on the need to acculturate:
Billeting; that’s a headache, because you can’t do what you normally do at home when you live in these other people’s non-Native homes. That sucks. But I did find one family that was really laid back, and to this day I’m still really good friends with them. I actually lived there for three years. I even lived there when I was done hockey, which was nice. They just let me be, and I became good friends with them. But with other families, you’re just not at home. The thing about dealing with that is you have to have an open mind to it too. At times when it’s tough, you have to embrace it. Because at the same time, these people do want you in their homes; otherwise they wouldn’t say yeah. (Jordan: 24 year old male)
Jordan realized that it was necessary for him to be open to the ways of his billets and acculturate towards this new cultural environment as a means of fitting in and creating a more viable living situation; even though it meant shifting away from or altering some of his
Aboriginal ways of being. Other participants in other instances were more resistant to this change, clinging to their Aboriginal culture in order to resist assimilative pressures that threatened their sense of identity. These findings illustrate the fluid nature of the acculturation process – sometimes the participants shifted towards the host culture in an effort to integrate and persist within that context, and sometimes they clung more deeply to their Aboriginal culture (as reflected in Jessica’s image and discussion of home) in order preserve their sense of self and resist pressures to “put on a fake mask”.
Lacking meaningful engagement from host culture members. Extending beyond their experiences with billets, many participants emphasized the difficulties they had engaging and building relationships with non-Aboriginal people more generally. In moving off-reserve, the participants became abruptly aware of their positions as cultural minorities in relation to the larger Euro-Canadian collective, and how this created an uneven social dynamic (and implicitly a one-way acculturation experience). As explained by Mike, being the only Native in a group of host culture members made him aware of the unfair expectation that he make the effort to relate to the people around him, as illustrated in his mandala (see Figure 5):
As I wrote on the bottom [of mandala], the challenge I had was being the only Native on all the teams I joined. It’s not that they were being rude or excluding me out. I’m just saying that I was the only Native out there and I was kinda nervous, because I’d never really mingled or socialized with non-Native people because I was always here on the reserve. And I’m usually a quiet person all around, like all the time. I find that’s due to my cultural teachings and values. Like as a kid, you are taught to just sit there and watch and listen, and you just pay attention to your educators or your teachers or your elders or your parents; you just sit there and listen and pay attention. That’s how I was taught anyway, and that’s how I’ve been my whole life. So, basically, in those first few weeks I just kind of did that; I just sat back and listened. You want to be a part of the group, so you have to get to know them [people in host culture] and then see if they will accept you or not... But that challenge there, with me being the only Native, is that no one really knows who I am or what I actually see. But I know what they see. I know who they are. (Mike: 26 year old male)
Figure 5. Mandala created by Mike.
Although Mike was able to learn about the people in the host culture around him and consider things from their cultural vantage, there was little reciprocation from those same people to learn who he was as an Aboriginal athlete. Therefore, Mike struggled to build relationships with those in the host culture, feeling burdened by the responsibility being placed solely on him to forge relationships through a one-way cultural sharing process. This was reinforced in Trevor’s mandala, as he depicted himself in a hockey arena alone, without any teammate support (see Figure 6):
It just pretty much shows me standing on one side of the blue line and the goalie on the other end – just me and the goalie. In [city] I played for the first time for a team that didn’t consist of any Native players, so I felt like I was on my own. The first day I walked into the dressing room, you could just hear chatter, chatter, chatter, chatter. They [teammates] were all having a good time talking amongst themselves. And then as soon as I walked around the corner, it just went quiet. They’re not saying anything but they’re looking at you, like Who is this guy? Where did he come from? What is he doing here? But at the same time, I knew that I was going to be in that position, coming in as the only
Native. And I knew it would be hard being an outsider and having to break into the group. But it’s something that you just have to do. (Trevor: 24 year old male)
Figure 6. Mandala created by Trevor.
The lack of engagement from host community members reinforced the participants’ status as outsiders in the host culture and created a sense of isolation, as visualized in the Trevor’s mandala. At various times these experiences worked to push the participants back towards their Aboriginal communities to gain a sense of belonging and support, and therein hindered their acculturation. However, at other points, many of the participants noted that once they were able to get past the initial challenge of having to “break the ice” with the host members around them, they became much more comfortable in their environments and were able to continue forming meaningful connections. This fluid experience was revealed in an account from Andrea:
I’ve always been a shy person. But when I moved up here I knew I needed to get friends and be more open and talk to people, or else they would avoid me and think that I just want to be on my own or don’t want to be talked to. At the time it was really hard for me to open up to these new people and try to socialize with them. Those first few days I was
terrified to talk to anyone. But now that I look back at it, it was really so simple and shouldn’t even have been a problem. I find it easy now to talk to other people. I don’t know why I made a big deal out of it when I first moved. (Andrea: 18 year old female) Through accounts such as this, it is evident that the participants’ acculturation experiences were directly affected by their shifting interactions with host culture members. In some moments, the participants were challenged by the lack of engagement they received from host community members, recognizing that they were the outsiders who would have to make the effort to get to know and fit in with the people around them. In other moments, when the participants were able to break the ice and forge personal connections, they began to feel a sense of belonging in their host contexts and shifted into more of an insider position (to a degree) that facilitated their acculturation within the Euro-Canadian culture.
Dealing with racism. Many participants were shocked by the existence of racism in the Euro-Canadian culture, which they described as forms of prejudice and discrimination that denigrated their Aboriginal identities by characterizing them as culturally inferior to those in the “mainstream”. The various forms of racism they identified included being called names and dealing with culturally offensive jokes, being stereotyped, as well as dealing with more subtle, systemic forms of discrimination within sport, such as being unjustly cut from teams. These incidents reinforced the participants’ experiences of acculturation as one-sided, as outlined above. Providing an insightful example, Jessica described her first encounter with racism, in the form of name-calling, and explicated how she struggled to come to terms with her place in a society that projects such cultural prejudice:
I was playing hockey with my [city] team. It was the last 30 seconds of the game, and this guy skates by me and goes, “You’re a dirty effing Native!” That was my first ever
experience of racism. Like, my dad kind of talked about it and how he went through it in high school, but I thought that’s not really present today at all and I can’t believe that. And then when this guy said that comment to me, I didn’t know how to take it. At first I was kind of mad. But then when I got to the dressing room I just burst out crying. It really offended me and it made me like, I don’t know – To be completely honest it actually does make you question yourself. Like why was I born Native? Or what if I was born white? You know, would I be as pretty as other people, and not what I look like now? That kind of thing. You know, it just really surprised me. This happened last year, but I could still cry about it. It’s like a knife through the heart because it’s something you can’t change about yourself. I can’t change the way I look or like my background, my Aboriginal background. You can’t change that. And for someone to call you dirty or make you ashamed of it, it’s like, oh my god! Especially if you’re living in a white