An Introduction to Intercultural Communication. Fred E. Jandt

      The wedding of Prince Harry and U.S.-born Meghan Markle had elements of both cultures with a gospel choir and U.S. Episcopalian bishop Michael Curry who references African-American spirituals and Black enslavement.

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      Intercultural marriages face many barriers including language, differences in religion and values, gender roles, child rearing, and relations with families and friends. Tili and Barker (2015) studied marriages of Asian and Caucasian U.S. spouses. Their study identified the intercultural communication competencies in international marriages:

      Think of a marriage between an individual raised in China and an individual raised in the United States. It might make a difference where the couple is living—China, the United States, or some other culture. In the relationship, one individual could attempt to adopt the culture of the other, or both individuals could attempt to build a new culture beyond their original cultures. Using the rhetorical sensitivity theory, the individual who adopts the culture of the other may be a rhetorical reflector initially, but then probably uses that to build rhetorical sensitivity as the relationship continues to develop. The individuals who attempt to build a new culture may be rhetorical sensitives. Rhetorical sensitivity may be critical for intercultural marriages.

      Some studies have concluded that intercultural marriages are difficult to establish and maintain; others have concluded that there is no evidence that they fail more often than intracultural ones (Tili & Barker, 2015).

      Another use of the term third culture has been to refer to children in expatriate families who reside outside of their home culture for years at a time (R. Useem & Downie, 1976). Other terms that have been used are global nomads, transnationals, and internationally mobile children (Gerner, Perry, Moselle, & Archbold, 1992). Ruth Useem (1999) argues that these people integrate elements of their home culture and their various cultures of residence into a third, different and distinct culture and may experience cultural marginality because of no longer feeling comfortable in any specific culture. In some ways, President Barack Obama is a third-culture kid. He was born in Honolulu to a mother from the United States and a father from Kenya. When Obama was 2 years old, his father returned to Kenya. His mother remarried and moved to her new husband’s homeland, Indonesia. Obama attended public school in Indonesia until he was 10 and then returned to Honolulu to live with his maternal grandparents. New York Times columnist David Brooks (2008) described Obama as a “sojourner who lives apart” (p. A33).

      While most research has been with children from the United States, studies have shown that third-culture kids have a high level of interest in travel and learning languages and feel accepting of cultures and diversity (Gerner et al., 1992). Iwama (1990) found third-culture kids to be more self-confident, flexible, active, and curious and to have greater bilingual ability.

      Does biculturalism as represented by third-culture kids represent a way to transcend nationalism and ethnocentrism and a way to create diverse communities (D. B. Willis, 1994)? There are suggestions of difficulties: Third-culture kids may have difficulty in maintaining relationships and in direct problem solving (C. A. Smith, 1991).

      Multiculturalism

      Definitions of intercultural competence grounded in communication have tended to stress the development of skills that transform one from a monocultural person into a multicultural person. The multicultural person is one who respects cultures and has tolerance for differences (Belay, 1993; Chen & Starosta, 1996). Using rhetorical sensitivity theory, it could be argued that the multicultural person is more likely to be a rhetorical sensitive.

      As you read in Chapter 1, nation-states have become the predominant form of cultural identification. Most Western nation-states developed a single national identity in the 18th and 19th centuries. Increasing immigration has been perceived as a challenge to those single national identities. Multiculturalism concerns “the general place of minorities, programs designed to foster equality, institutional structures created to provide better social services, and resources extended to ethnic minority organizations” (Vertovec, 1996, p. 222); these became the way to respond to cultural and religious differences.

      The Canadian Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism is often credited with developing the modern political awareness of multiculturalism beginning with a preliminary report in 1965 (R. L. Jackson, 2010). Initially a policy to protect indigenous cultures, multiculturalism became an official Canadian policy in 1971; soon Australia and most member states of the European Union followed.

      In the United States, the origins of multiculturalism date back as early as 1915 to philosopher Horace Kallen (1915, 1924/1970), who set forth the idea of cultural pluralism to describe the United States. He employed the metaphor of a symphony orchestra. Each instrument was an immigrant group that, together with other immigrant groups, created harmonious music. Kallen’s opponents included John Dewey (Westbrook, 1991), who warned that cultural pluralism supported rigid segregation lines between groups. Hollinger (1995) has described the issue as a two-sided confrontation between those who advocate a uniform culture grounded in Western civilization and those who promote diversity.

      Several European heads of state have denounced multicultural policies: Former British prime minister David Cameron, German chancellor Angela Merkel, former Australian prime minister John Howard, former Spanish prime minister José María Aznar, and former French president Nicolas Sarkozy have all challenged their country’s multicultural policies. Several European states—notably the Netherlands and Denmark—have returned to an official monoculturalism (Bissoondath, 2002). Chancellor Merkel, for example, announced that multiculturalism had “utterly failed” (Weaver, 2010).

      The same concern that multiculturalism has failed exists in the United States. Increased immigration and international terrorism and domestic terrorism have led to renewed pressures against multiculturalism. In April 2013, 3 people were killed and 264 injured when two bombs exploded at the Boston Marathon. The FBI identified two suspects, brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Although they had never lived in Chechnya, the brothers identified as Chechen. Their family emigrated in 2002 and applied for refugee status. Both spoke English well. Tamerlan enrolled in a community college and married a U.S. citizen. He was quoted as having said that he “didn’t understand” Americans and had not a single American friend (Weigel, 2013). Dzhokhar became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2012 and enrolled in a university program in marine biology. He was reported to be greatly influenced by his older brother. Some believe that the brothers were motivated by an anti-American, radical version of Islam that Tamerlan had learned in the Russian republic Dagestan or that they had learned in the United States.

      Some columnists began to label the tragedy as an example of the failure of multiculturalism. Mike Gonzalez (2013), for example, asks how two refugee recipients of free education in the United States could not assimilate. Assimilation, Gonzalez asserts, does not connote coercion and loss of ancestral culture, but it does mean patriotism. (You’ll read more about assimilation in Chapters 10 and 11.)

      Postethnic Cultures

      You read earlier in this chapter that John Dewey criticized cultural pluralism as encouraging people to identify themselves as members of one group. If a person is born female in Texas of immigrant parents from Mexico and