Jacqueline Tome, herself an immigrant from Brazil, runs a family psychology practice on the Illinois side and a consulting practice across the river in Iowa. Her consultancy business, called Global Awareness Consulting, helps businesses and organizations interact with their immigrant employees, while her psychology practice helps individuals and families from other countries deal with their own difficulties in entering fully into American society.
“What we do is train people to work with people from other cultures,” she explained. “A lot of people are depressed [after] entering the country, and have trouble adjusting to the culture.”
The adjustment has to be made on both ends, on the part of the immigrant as well as the society they are attempting to integrate with. Tome knows this from her own experience, when she first came to the States. “They thought Brazil was some third world country,” she said. “They thought I was stupid; that I knew nothing.” Dispelling these misconceptions took time and patience, the same time and patience she gives to the families and business she helps do the same.
Tome first started mingling business consultancy and family psychology when she taught English as a Second Language classes for a multinational corporation. She realized that a mutual understanding and respect of one another’s cultural background is necessary for cultural interaction. “The catchphrase is ‘we have to tolerate.’ But tolerating isn’t enough. As someone from another country, I don’t want to be tolerated; I want to be respected.” Tolerating isn’t interactive, it’s passive; it doesn’t bring people together. To live in the same community as someone from another culture, one has to make the effort to understand and respect that culture, not just tolerate it.
Respect is a hard thing to come by, especially when the basis of many Americans’ knowledge of other cultures is that of misunderstanding and individualism. “When you are individualistic, you’re taught that you don’t need help; if you’re taught that you don’t need help, you become isolationist… Isolationism is hard to comprehend especially for Mexicans, because they are so group and family oriented. You have to break that isolationism and belong to the larger group.”
And it is hard also from the immigrant’s perspective, especially when bereft of their own cultural customs and symbols. “It’s especially hard for those immigrants that don’t have a group to help maintain their cultural identity,” she explained. “Every immigrant feels a sense of not belonging, but it helps to have a part of your culture that you keep. For instance, Brazilians are caring and loving people, and I wanted to keep that.” She waved her hand toward some pictures on the wall and a calendar with images of the verdant Brazilian coastline. “These remind me of home,” she said. Those simple reminders of one’s birthplace and heritage also reinforce one’s cultural identity, making it easier to live in a society which at first is strange and sometimes frightening.
Over-categorization and stereotyping, on the other hand, set the process back. “Some people say to me, ‘Oh, Brazilians are emotional’…people need to categorize, to label.” But this makes it harder to understand the individual, and ultimately, the culture. Understanding one’s own culture goes hand-in-hand with understanding other cultures, too. “I encourage people to understand their cultural background; talk about things they don’t normally talk about. The idea is to help people think outside the box [regarding multiculturalism].”
Jackie Tome is the only Spanish speaking psychotherapist in the area; she also speaks her native language of Portuguese, and French; her English is impeccable. She also leads a volunteer group made up of people from different cultures to help encourage cultural awareness and discourage discrimination. If you would like to get involved, please call her at (309) 269-6345 or e-mail her at [email protected].
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