Resocialization is the process in which a particular person of a society has to leave his old role in order to take a new one and readjusting with different norms, values or expectations accordingly. There are many prime examples of resocialization. For example, when a person gets married or become a parent, his or her role in the society changes significantly. New set of responsibilities or duties and expectations might arise as well as moral values. However, to me, a fascinating story of resocialization might be the story of migration. As an immigrant in US, this story of migration is even more fascinating for me.
By migrating from one country to another, one person might have to readjust his life style in accordance to his or her new country’s norm and culture. How come it changes somebody’s lifestyle? I would use my story as an example. I came to United States from Bangladesh back in October, 2009. Back in my country and in most of the South Asian countries in general, life style is hugely different. I completed my high school education back in my country. As a student, all I have to do back then is study and study. I don’t really have to worry about my earnings and all of those financial stuffs, as my father was ensuring that particular sector. However, since my whole family migrated to New York, things have been very different. My parents find it very hard to find a work, and I have to take a lot of financial responsibilities on my shoulders. The tuition fee and the cost of living are astronomically high in this country. Moreover, most of the middle class families from my homeland have to come in this country and start a humble beginning. Their financial situation is not necessarily good at the beginning. So far, I have taken my responsibilities well; I am doing a job and also attending Baruch College. Thus, I am becoming the driving force of my family and I am supporting my parents financially as well. If somebody compares the current situations with my previous one, it has drastically changed. I used to be a very irresponsible, lazy person who only used to take care of his homework and now here I am, becoming one of the most responsible persons among my family members. There are thousands of other examples like that, one have to look at those in order to study those.
The video that I posted from the magazine called ‘The Economist’, gives us a glimpse about the migration statistics and how it is changing the demographics in different continents. It also talks about a very important aspect, the remittance that people are sending in their countries. Since I came to this country, I have sent some remittance once in my country. I would probably look at myself and I can’t deny how migration has played its part in resocialzing me.
I understand what it feels like when you move to a new place. I myself have moved from Brooklyn, a highly dense-populated borough of NYC, to Nassau County, Long island, which is a lightly populated suburban county. Although it is not too far in distance, the differences are tremendous. When I first moved here, I had went from a school of where teachers didn’t care because there were just too many kids, to a school of where every student was known by name and where teachers actually cared that you did well in school. This was a very big resocialization stage that I had gone through. My attitude of always watching my back in Brooklyn was not needed anymore because of the friendliness and kindness that people had shown me. Finding a job in Long Island was much easier than it was in Brooklyn. Needing a car was a much bigger deal in Long Island, because of the fact that nothing was walking distance and there wasn’t the same availability of buses and trains as there were in Brooklyn. At first, moving to a place where you cannot hear any noise at night was very difficult, because I was so used to the noise of trains, people yelling, music playing and much more. Day by day, I was getting used to the new place and also liking it better than the city. Resocialization is very hard at first, but once you adjust to it will, everything will feel normal again.