Negotiating a Sense of Identity in a Foreign Land

Identity Formation

Anthropologists and sociologists of education have long considered culture and identity to be fundamental components of any analysis of the practices of schooling. Whereas culture can be thought of as collective sense-making about what is important within a given community, identity is generally viewed as an individual process of assimilating cultural ideas and then presenting and representing those ideas as part of oneself in a given context. Both culture and identity are fluid and evolving, as individuals and communities continually respond to the changing world around them. The greater the changes, the greater the need for both individuals and communities to constantly rethink what is important for their survival and well-being.

The Haitian students, parents, and teachers in our study confronted many changes in both experiences and expectations as they moved from homes, neighborhoods, and schools in Haiti to homes, neighborhoods, and schools in South Florida. An analysis of identity formation serves as a way to interpret the individual and communal reactions and responses to these changes. Our study is grounded in both structural and cultural analysis of identity formation, two perspectives that are complimentary in the sense that while structural analysis explains how identity is reproduced, cultural analysis explains how identity evolves. Or to put it another way, structural analysis explores how larger structures constrain an individual’s identity choices, whereas cultural analysis explores how individuals exert agency to make identity choices that may push back against as well as conform to the larger social structures.

Haitian Identity

This framework seems well suited for our exploration of identity formation within the Haitian community in South Florida. As immigrants coming from a largely class stratified and racially homogenous context in Haiti to a somewhat less class stratified but racially heterogeneous context in South Florida, the struggle of identity formation among Haitian school children is intricate and multifaceted (Bryce-Laporte, 1972). The identities these students create for themselves during their elementary and middle school years are likely to have lifelong social and economic consequences. We draw upon the limited but growing literature on the experiences of Haitian students in U.S. schools to consider how Haitian identity formation might be framed in terms of structural and cultural interpretations. We note that identity formation in the U.S. Haitian community is not a static construct, but has evolved as the Haitian community in South Florida has grown in both number and influence over the last several decades.

Purpose of the Study and Research Question

As we consider the school experiences of individual Haitian students, parents, and teachers in Haitian and U.S. societies, we are guided by both structural and cultural interpretations of identity formation within the specific context of the Haitian community in South Florida. We believe that identity, or the presentation of self in the context of social relationships, whether taking the form of resistance or assimilation to academic expectations, cannot be separated from inequitable power dynamics both in schools and in society more broadly. By applying this framework to the experiences of Haitian students, parents, and teachers in South Florida, we sought to answer the following research question: How is the identity development of Haitian students shaped and influenced by U.S. public school structures and pedagogical practices that often conflict with their Haitian culture and values?

Research Context

Participants

Three groups of participants were selected to represent the primary stakeholders in the challenge of creating supportive and successful learning environments for Haitian students in U.S. schools. First, student participants were able to discuss the varying and sometimes competing cultural expectations they felt as they moved back and forth between school and community settings. Middle school students were selected to allow for a range of educational experiences both in Haiti and in the United States. Second, parent participants were able to speak to the value they placed upon the education of their children, the role that culture and identity formation played in their own education, and the confusion they sometimes felt due to the differences between schooling in Haiti and schooling in the United States. Finally, Haitian teacher participants were able to provide both “insider” and “outsider” perspectives on the cultural and academic norms in the school settings, and the role that teachers play in facilitating both student and parent understanding of these norms and practices. Together, the three participant groups provide a holistic picture of the competing and complementary roles that home, community, and school environments play in the identity formation of Haitian youth in South Florida.

Instruments

Two similar sets of interview protocols were developed: one for focus group interviews and the other for individual interviews. The interview protocols were developed by the research team based on our previous research on language, culture, and identity and on our reading of the literature specific to the education of Haitians (Stepick, 1998; Zephir, 1996, 2001, 2004). All the protocols for students, parents, and teachers followed a parallel format. Questions were open-ended to encourage participants to reflect in depth on their backgrounds, expectations (e.g., schooling, teachers), aspirations, responsibilities, and cultural values, while leaving room for factors that the research team might not have considered to be relevant.

Data Collection

Data collection included focus group interviews as well as individual interviews with each participant. The three bilingual English/Haitian Creole speaking members of the research team conducted the interviews, with the first conducting all student interviews, the second all parent interviews, and the third all teacher interviews. Student interviews were conducted at the school site. Focus group interviews with parents and teachers were conducted at the interviewers’ homes and individual interviews were conducted either at the interviewers’ or participants’ homes.

The language of the interviews was left to the preference of the participants. All of the student interviews, except one, were conducted in Haitian Creole. All the interviews with parents were conducted in Haitian Creole. All the interviews with teachers were conducted in English, except one that was conducted in a combination of English and Haitian Creole. Focus group interviews were conducted both in English and Haitian Creole. Across all participant groups, focus group interviews lasted from 1 to 1.5 hr, and individual interviews lasted from 45 min to 1.5 hr. For each of the three sets of participants, three focus groups and 12 individual interviews were conducted. Thus, a total of nine focus group interviews and 36 individual interviews were conducted. All interviews were audiotaped and transcribed, and the 30 interviews that were conducted in Haitian Creole were translated into English.

Data Analysis

Conceptualizing structural and cultural constructions of identity required us to trace identity issues upward and outward from the level of the school to include the home and community, as well as downward and inward to address individual struggles with identity formation. To this end, it was important to examine the perspectives of students, parents, and teachers and to explore connections among and across these groups in trying to understand links between the local and the translocal. While all of our interviews were conducted in South Florida, the study participants all had translocal experiences in both Haiti and the United States that influenced their identity formation in the context of schooling. Our analysis needed to capture and interpret these experiences.

First, a matrix was created whereby the segments of each interview transcript dealing with issues of schooling and issues of living in the United States were pulled out and arranged in a table. Then, open coding was used to look for patterns of response and to assign codes within each group for the teachers, students, and parents, respectively. Frequency counts were made of the response codes. Next, related questions asked of the three groups of participants were clustered together. Within each group, codes were compared to establish cross-group coding patterns. Together, these within-group and cross-group codes served as the basis for the assertions made in the results section. Illustrative quotes were then sought from the original transcripts to represent major themes.

Learning as Recitation or Inquiry

A major difference between the Haitian and the U.S. public school system is the pedagogical approach to teaching and learning. The Haitian system places an emphasis on learning as the accumulation of a factual knowledge base. As a result, teachers routinely wrote on the board, dictated notes, and emphasized rote memorization of material. Students were then expected to recite these lessons on the following day. Students affirmed that memorization and recitation were the pedagogical norms in Haiti and required considerable effort to meet teachers’ expectations.

The majority of parents also underscored the emphasis on memorization and recitation in Haiti. They believed that this pedagogical approach led students to study hard at home in the evening and on weekends. In contrast, parents noticed little homework in the United States and expressed confusion about the U.S. education system and a desire for teachers to assign more homework to keep the students focused on learning.

Parents believed that because their children had little homework, the teachers were putting the responsibility for supporting and reinforcing their children’s learning back on the parents.

While some parents discussed the value of the “rigorous” curriculum in Haiti, other parents highlighted the possible negative consequences of instruction that required students in Haiti to memorize chapter after chapter, regardless of comprehension. They contrasted this to the U.S. school system, which emphasized the importance of involving students in hands-on activities and other strategies to promote comprehension. The same instructional practices were sometimes interpreted in different ways when comparing the Haitian and U.S. educational systems.

Echoing what students and parents said, many of the Haitian teachers also described the focus on memorization and recitation in Haiti. Some teachers highlighted what they considered to be positive aspects of this approach. They believed that requiring students to memorize and recite large chunks of information involved hard work and a commitment to academics on the part of the students.

However, some teachers pointed out the limitations of this approach, especially as it related to students making the transition to learning in U.S. classrooms.

Other teachers expressed concern that newly arrived Haitian students were overwhelmed by the change in requirements and did not know how to adjust to this new pedagogical approach. As a result, the Haitian students became “lazy” because students in the United States had much more freedom in their learning than students in Haiti.

Teacher as Strict Parent or Lenient Spectator

The second consistent difference pointed out between schooling in Haiti and schooling in the United States related to the role of the teacher as either a strict parent or a lenient spectator. In Haiti, because teachers are perceived as surrogate parents while students are in their care, their role explicitly extends to that of a disciplinarian. This difference becomes particularly relevant when coupled with more general differences in disciplinary approaches between Haiti and the United States (e.g., whipping in Haiti vs. time out or loss of privileges in the United States.).

While the differences in disciplinary approaches taken by teachers in Haiti and the United States were clear, students’ feelings about the value and consequences of each approach were varied. Some students highlighted the negative effects of the disciplinary approaches taken by Haitian teachers:

Other students highlighted what they perceived as the positive effects of corporal punishment, pointing out that the strict discipline helped them to focus more on academics. For these students, the consequences of rule infractions in U.S. schools (e.g., not completing homework resulting in lower grades) appeared to be much less dire than those consequences and punishments experienced in Haiti, and thus did not prove motivational.

While the students had mixed feelings, the Haitian parents consistently indicated that teachers in the United States were too lenient, lacked authority, and gave students too much freedom. Parents believed that this lack of forceful authority was the primary source of Haitian students’ discipline problems in U.S. schools and a major cause for the students not succeeding academically.

The Haitian teachers took a balanced position when it came to classroom discipline. Perhaps because they had more experience with both education systems, the teachers expressed pros and cons of each approach. In describing differences between teachers in Haiti and the United States, they explained that teachers, and other authority figures, were viewed as parental figures in Haiti. Parents expected that all adults in positions of authority would take the responsibility for “parenting” all children under their supervision. As a result, teachers were expected to control student behavior with corporal punishment, since this was the discipline method that parents typically used at home.

Peers Like Me or Americanization

A young adolescent’s sense of self can be profoundly shaped by reflections that are mirrored back by significant others, such as peers. Haitian students in our study were keenly aware that some of these reflections were negative and took the form of disparagement. Sometimes these comments came from their non-Haitian classmates, but other times came from other Haitian students who had been living in the United States for a longer time.

As they observed their children acclimating to a new environment, both at school and in the community, parents expressed concern over the treatment from peers that Haitian youth often experienced as a result of their cultural values, their style of dress and way of talking.

Other parents expressed concern over their children’s desire to assimilate to gain acceptance by their peers, thus losing the pride and cultural values that the parents felt they had instilled. These values could be expressed through personal appearance, and through the use of the Creole language, which is a great source of pride and a unifying bond among Creole-speaking Haitians.

Not only were the Haitian parents concerned about their children starting to conform to a style of dress they found unacceptable and denying their home language, but they were also disturbed by the possibility of newly arrived Haitian students modeling the disrespectful behaviors demonstrated by some peers.

The Haitian teachers, who had all been teaching in South Florida schools for a number of years, validated many of the parents’ concerns about the peer influences on newly arrived Haitian students, while again taking a somewhat more balanced perspective that recognized both the parents’ concerns and the students’ situation. They pointed out that Haitian students quickly became “Americanized,”—which they defined as behaving like inner-city kids (the majority of whom were African American), not doing their schoolwork or homework, and not respecting their teachers.

Conclusions

We began this study with a broad interest in issues related to the schooling of Haitian students in South Florida. In examining the intersection of home, school, and cultural influences on the lives of Haitian immigrant students, we were provided with a glimpse of the challenges these students encountered as they negotiated a sense of identity in a foreign land. More specifically, as the expectations of students, parents, and teachers intersected in the school landscape, the data revealed ways in which Haitian students were simultaneously pulled in multiple directions. The interviews highlight the potential conflicts that can arise as students negotiate values shaped by interactions with parents and family members at home, as well as values shaped by the interactions with peers and teachers in school (Chhuon et al., 2010; Olsen, 1997; Suarez-Orozco et al., 2008). While all young adolescents confront these issues of identity formation, the competing expectations can be especially stark for Haitian immigrant students. Our conceptual framework of structural and cultural perspectives on identity formation led us to foreground three themes that highlight the potential conflicts that might occur as Haitian students negotiate their identities in South Florida schools: (a) learning as recitation or inquiry, (b) teacher as strict parent or lenient spectator, and (c) peers like me or Americanization. While these themes are actually false dichotomies, they may feel like stark choices to Haitian immigrant students.

The Haitian students, parents, and teachers in our study indicated that the pedagogical practices implemented by teachers in U.S. public schools were often unfamiliar. Participants consistently described schooling in Haiti in terms of approaches such as memorization and recitation. This is contrary to the reform-oriented approaches of many U.S. classrooms in which students are taught to find their own answers through inquiry and independent or group investigation. Students in U.S. classrooms are also taught to freely question the educational resources from which they obtain information, whereas in Haiti students are generally not encouraged to question information provided by their teachers or textbooks.

The pedagogical practices experienced by Haitian students influence their identity development. As such, teachers must be cognizant of how their classroom practices, their interactions with students, and their own ideas about identity might influence the academic success of Haitian students (Njue & Retish, 2010). When teachers and students bring different cultural frames of reference and communication styles to classroom interactions, there can be a disconnect between the teacher’s and student’s ways of constructing and representing knowledge. Because learning cannot occur in isolation, conflicts between modes of learning often lead to a cultural mismatch, resulting in frustration and confusion on the part of students, parents, and teachers (Chhuon et al., 2010; Olsen, 1997; Suarez-Orozco et al., 2008).

Negotiating meaning and intent in light of these obstacles is a complex process. This is because educational choices, which include pedagogical practices, are embedded in the economic, political, and social interests of dominant social structures, which impact students’ educational attainment and access to power (Giroux, 1992). These practices have real-life consequences for Haitian immigrant students whose cultural capital and identities are devalued in many U.S. classrooms, leaving these students feeling that they have limited choices in forming identities within the school context. Teachers who reproduce the dominant discourses of teaching without leveraging the cultural capital that Haitian students bring to the classroom deny them the right to be positioned as valuable members of a school community. Contrarily, when teachers approach learning “not merely as the acquisition of knowledge but as the production of cultural practices that offer students a sense of identity, place, and hope” (Giroux, 1992, p. 170), they create and recreate spaces that permit students’ identities to enter, thus challenging the educational power dynamics and the continued reproduction of structural inequalities (Willis, 1977).

In addition to struggling with the pedagogical expectations of teachers who value inquiry over memorization and recitation, Haitian students also expressed tensions over parental expectations and standards for behavior, which were often at odds with the expectations of their peers. In Haiti there is the common belief that the teacher is pivotal in opening the door of success, both academically and professionally. The teacher is perceived as the “parent” setting firm limits and having control over the students. Consequently, participants expressed concern over the negative behaviors exhibited by American students towards the teacher in U.S. schools as well as confusion over the perceived failure of U.S. teachers to respond firmly and exert control over this situation. For Haitian students and parents, this behavior indicated a lack of clear rules governing teacher–student interactions. Although the disciplinary approaches used in Haitian classrooms were not supported by all participants, most believed that the negative behaviors demonstrated by American students were the result of the permissiveness (e.g., student autonomy, ambiguous rules, and limited corporal punishment) that characterizes the U.S. educational system (Doucet, 2011; Stepick, 1998; Zephir, 2001).

Individuals’ actions in schools are shaped by their cultural backgrounds and beliefs, as well as by their prior experiences of schooling and their interactions with peers (Chhuon et al., 2010). Participants in our study had a strong sense that much of what had been valued in the traditional Haitian culture was being undermined by more liberal American norms and values. For example, within the Haitian culture that promotes collectivist orientation, the teacher has primary authority and manages student behavior directly. In contrast, an individualist orientation generally exists in U.S. classrooms, as the teacher manages behavior indirectly and emphasizes students’ development of self-control. The norms and values that many of the study participants held in terms of what it meant to project a “good Haitian student identity” seemed constrained by both structural and cultural features of U.S. schooling. Parents in our study worried about their children becoming “Americanized” in ways that devalued the cultural capital acquired in the home and community. Thus, they attempted to create distance between the worlds of home and school because of their fears of losing their children to Americanization and the perceived negative educational outcomes for Haitian youth (Doucet, 2011; Zephir, 2001, 2004).

The recurring theme of peers like me or Americanization highlights students’ need for social belonging and the identity conflicts this can create for immigrant students. Haitian students are confronted with the fact that while their classmates may look the same, they speak, dress, and behave differently, and ridicule them for their foreignness. Participants in this study confirmed the verbal and physical abuse that Haitian students received from their peers. These negative epithets, for example, referenced their style of dress, which suggested that they were not American. For identity development, individuals are dependent upon the images reflected by others. These “others” include parents, teachers, and peers (Suarez-Orozco, 2004). When the image is negative, it is extremely difficult for students to resist the urge to conform, even if the cost of this conformity is academic success.

For parents, student conformity meant shedding their dream of preserving Haitian traditions and values (Zephir, 2001, 2004). However, for many Haitian students, to remain Haitian implied social ostracism (Zephir, 2001, 2004). Some students adopted behaviors, attitudes, and speech patterns that were “Haitian” at home to meet their parents’ expectations, and “American or African American” at school to fit in and be accepted by peers. Others made a more complete transition that included the expression of an “Americanized” identity in the home. The stresses of this identity confusion and the resulting strains on familial relationships can result in increased likelihood of Haitian youth engaging in violent behaviors, substance abuse, and internalizing and emulating negative stereotypes ascribed to African Americans and/or Haitians (Suarez-Orozco, 2004), all behaviors that have become increasingly prevalent in the South Florida Haitian community (Linstroth, Hall, Douge-Prosper, & Hiller, 2009; Marcelin & Marcelin, 2001).

Discussion

Haitian youth growing up in South Florida must come to terms with their beliefs about who they are and who they wish to become within a context of substantial cultural conflict. They are constantly receiving cultural messages from their parents about the importance of maintaining their Haitian cultural heritage. Just as often, they receive very different messages about adopting a set of Americanized cultural norms that are prevalent in schools and among their peers. Haitian students vacillate between these two cultures that continually clash. They are pulled by competing cultural norms that demand conformity to largely incompatible sets of customs. How are young adolescents to construct comfortable identities for themselves within such an environment? What cultural resources can they most readily bring to bear to support them in this process? At least part of the answer to these questions involves the development of a clearer understanding of the norms and expectations of U.S. schools.

Our research indicates that although Haitian parents and students were able to articulate relative strengths and limitations of each educational system, many Haitian parents and students had only a limited knowledge of the mainstream U.S. culture and goals of the public school system. When cultural conflicts occur between students’ home culture and the school culture, students’ abilities, aptitudes, and intents can easily be misread (Delpit, 1988; Oakes, 2005). For example, Haitian youth bring many assets into U.S. classrooms, including the experience of being focused on academic success, doing many hours of homework, and having been trained to memorize and recite large amounts of academic material. However, these abilities are de-emphasized in U.S. schools and are not considered to be meaningful learning experiences.

By failing to acknowledge or leverage this cultural capital, U.S. schools undermine Haitian students’ sense of self and divest them of important social and cultural resources. This process leaves Haitian youth progressively more vulnerable to academic failure and social inequalities and increases the likelihood that they will choose to enact identities that conform to peer pressures over identities that conform to traditional Haitian values. These choices are important indicators of how Haitian youth are transitioning into U.S. society. For children of immigrants, particularly those of Haitian descent, schools are the first setting of sustained contact with a new culture. As a result, educational experiences can shape the identities, academic outcomes, and economic capital of Haitian youth. This study suggests that not enough is done to promote student identity development that builds on and complements traditional Haitian norms and values. In the absence of explicit measures, the context of U.S. schooling will continue to undermine the strengths of Haitian culture and identity.

Implications

The insights gained from Haitian parents, teachers, and students in this study can provide valuable information about how best to help Haitian students succeed academically. Teachers in U.S. schools often lack knowledge of the cultural and educational histories of Haitian youth. For example, Haitian students who have grown up in a teacher-centered school environment, are likely to be confused by the shift to a student-centered approach to learning. To provide effective instruction for Haitian students, teachers must be educated about the histories of these youth. After recognizing the cultural and educational strengths of Haitian youth, teachers can better provide them with opportunities to explore and construct meaning based on the cultural capital these students bring to the learning process. This can be accomplished by infusing content material from the Haitian culture into the school curriculum, thus allowing Haitian students to understand the complexities of U.S. society (Banks, 2006). By transforming the curriculum and by transcending holidays, heroes/heroines, and special celebrations, students can learn to view academic content through multiple lenses. At the same time, Haitian parents and students must gain a better understanding of the goals, norms and rationale of the U.S. educational system, including differences in the expected roles of teachers, parents and students (Suarez-Orozco et al., 2008). Teachers and other school personnel can provide this explicit instruction about the U.S. school norms to both students and parents, rather than expecting them to figure out these norms on their own (Delpit, 1988).

Because students’ identity choices are derivative of their educational and cultural histories (Zephir, 2001), understanding how Haitian identity formation takes place is essential for creating learning environments that support both the academic and social development of Haitian youth in our schools and communities. To enable Haitian students to learn to balance both Haitian and U.S. cultural identities, teachers and parents must demonstrate a patient and caring attitude. In addition, Haitian parents and teachers must join together to find ways to empower these students. If not, much like Willis’ “lads” (Willis, 1977), too many Haitian youth in South Florida will continue to set their educational and professional goals low, drop out of school, and reproduce a social reality grounded in racial and ethnic inequities. Our study shows that there are alternatives, but that they require a concerted effort to better understand how identities both shape and are shaped by the structural and cultural features of society.