Aim of the Research
The purpose of this study is to examine the impacts of the lives of Iraqi and Cuban refugees who have arrived the United States. Specifically, this paper will focus on the statistics of the refugees, their emotional standing, their living styles, problem arising due to language barriers, and the difficulties that they face in finding employment in the US.
Introduction
Based on Office of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, 2012 saw nearly 1948 Cuban refugees arriving in the US. Most of these individuals had escaped torture and political persecution in their mother nations. On the other hand, 12,122 Iraqi refugees managed to acquire the refugee status in the US with most of them having experienced additional stressors arising from their journey to the US coupled with the procedures involved in immigration (U.S. Department of Health, 2012).
This increased their emotional disturbances given that they were still reeling from traumatic exposures such as war and persecution. From the studies that have been conducted, it has been identified that discrimination and intolerance are the leading obstacles that these individuals are facing as they try to adjust to the mainstream culture.
Therefore, the most widespread mental symptoms for such refugees include overwhelming fears and worries, restlessness, feeling on the edge, and anger management issues (Bemak et al., 2003). The Iraqi and Cuban refugees face various challenges while in the US. First, they have been forced to adopt a culture that is different as compared to their traditional customs and beliefs.
Therefore, they strive to achieve financial success as a means of overcoming this obstacle (Robin, 2003). These refugees also strive to ensure that their children receive the best education they can afford to ensure that they are successful in the long run, a practice that is considered as a norm within the normal American population. This makes them susceptible to depression, nervousness, and post-traumatic stress symptoms (Hardin et al., 2001).
Notably, some states do not provide physical or mental health screening for these refugees. Consequently, the government and the non-governmental organizations that deal with refugee affairs do not consider their psychological problems especially in dealing with their employment issues (U.S. Department of Health, 2012).
From the studies that have been conducted, the main problem that these refugees are facing is finding work especially under the current economy slowdown although they get help from resettlement centers with the assistance of the International Rescue Committee. However, as compared to the Cuban refugees, most of the Iraqi refugees are highly educated comprising doctors, architects, and translators.
Most of these individuals had been successful in life while living in Iraq. However, most of these qualifications are not recognized and even the ones that are recognized do face barriers such as deficit of local job experience in addition to lack of knowledge regarding the US work environment. Due to stereotypes arising from September 11 attacks, most employers do not want to give them jobs.
To some extent, these individuals find it hard to rent apartments due to discrimination by the owners. It is only in one instance that the State Department offered a grant of $425 for every person in a single family and the refugee aid-groups do not have sufficient resources.
Other difficulties they get in trying to seek employment include the inability to speak English and discrimination from employers. This discrimination does not just entail skills but type of jobs since most are given the option of seasonal or part-time jobs (Robin, 2003). Others are forced to quit due to their physical or psychological ill health.
For instance, it has been reported that most refugees are forced to undertake long sessions of training to work. However, after this extensive training, only a few of them are employed and once employed, they are paid at lower rates as compared to other employees within the organization (Robin, 2003).
Literature Review
Numerous studies of refugees have focused on the outcome of their mounting traumas on their overall welfare, especially the children and young people. Focusing on the first group, the children, there are those who have lost one or both of their parents. Most of the Iraqi children barely escaped death in their homeland.
Therefore, given that they rigorously undertake intensive English lessons as a second language (ESL) course, they continue to face serious communication issues especially in dealing with their severe depression or PTSD. Their post-migration phase is filled with numerous stressors such as acculturation, language barriers, prejudices, and thrashing of social status (Hardin et al., 2001).
Secondly, the young men have identified language and lack of cultural competence and knowledge to be a key factor of their deteriorating mental health and career problems. Due to such barriers, the counselors need to apply integrative and holistic means in dealing with mental health problems faced by the children and young men, their deprived self-concept, and their advanced self-efficacy concerns.
Acculturation is a factor with members of Iraqi and Cuba populations. This is evident through their own assumptions, prejudices, and preconceived notions against the western culture (Bemak, Chung, & Pedersen, 2003). Furthermore, their values and personal limitations make them to have a totally different understanding of cultural diversity.
Therefore, it is crucial to understand their values and assumptions regarding human behavior. Both Cuban and Iraqi refugees belong to a collectivistic and group-oriented culture, particularly on their psychological orientations and focus of responsibility (Robin, 2003). Therefore, identity development models will help in understanding the target population as they assist in recognizing the most pronounced psychological stress on the refugees’ ability to choose their careers.
Therefore, vocational identity theories as proposed by Robin (2003) will help in their career counseling since they entail developing assimilationist, limited assimilationist, and bicultural model applications. The career counselors of these refugees should not desist from applying confrontational approach, since the care-frontational methods entail the counselor delicately explaining the cost of retaining their conventional attitudes and behaviors, a factor that is detrimental to their careers and work experiences.
For instance, an employee can be encouraged to improve on his/her time management skills because his/her performance plays a critical role in determining his productivity as well as the performance of other employees within the organization. From a critical analysis therefore, it is evident that this model is associated with people who are coping with new cultures.
Due to hostilities from the hosts, a career counselor needs to deal with the social isolation which impacts on their work performance but with the help of a culturally capable therapist (Bemak, Chung, & Pedersen, 2003). Secondly, the career counselor should assist them in shaping their awareness and decision making by forming a parallel identity similar to American identity but maintaining their traditional identity outside work.
The career counselors need to provide help in defining their identities particularly those relating to their work life. The first application of cultural formulations should be cultural identity. This comprises of a contemplation of the extent to which the refugees categorize with their own ethnic culture and the principal culture. Therefore as a career counselor, it is important to identify acculturation as entails helping them to change attitudes, beliefs, and norms (Bemak, Chung, & Pedersen, 2003).
References
Bemak, F., Chung, R., & Pedersen, P. B. (2003). Counseling refugees: A psychosocial approach to innovative multicultural interventions. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
Hardin, E. E., Leong, F. T., & Osipow, S. H. (2001). Cultural relativity in the conceptualization. Journal of Vocational Behavior , 58, 36-52.
Robin, L. (2003). Building bridges to the American workforce: employment counseling with immigrants and refugees. Washington DC: U.S. Department of Education.
U.S. Department of Health. (2012). Fiscal Year 2012 Refugee Arrivals. Web.