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By Patricia Bennett
January 14, 2015 (San Diego’s East County)--The headlines make our hearts ache and our minds race. What can we do?
Alienated youth are joining radical groups for meaning and identity in the face of social instability and lack of opportunity. When their sense of self is not developed because they lack attention and understanding from stressed parents, they are even more vulnerable. Parents struggle increasingly to spend time with their kids when they must work extra hours and jobs at low wages to barely meet expenses. Such stress can also lead to addictive escapes, abuse, and ruptured marriages, leaving kids without the kind of emotional support they need.
The stress on refugee and immigrant families is even greater. In addition to economic pressures, parents often suffer from limited language ability in the new country, prejudice and discrimination, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), culture shock from values they do not understand, and alienation from their own children who speak the language and learn the culture of the host country before they do. Although many immigrant groups care deeply about family values, the values they want to promote may be far from what their children will embrace. In a fast-changing electronic world of sudden diversity in thought and belief, both parents and children can get lost in the cacophony of conflicting ideas and lifestyles.
No wonder people reach for something to hold, to believe in, and they grasp it fiercely. Suddenly they can make sense of life and feel they belong as a member of a group “for” something good and “against” something evil. Or, they lash out as lone rebels, exploding at a target they imagine is justified, in their ignorance, pain and confusion.
As economic pressure builds, the world shrinks, and values collide, many feel that the center cannot hold. They desperately reach for a meaningful solution, be it for or against the established norms. As youth become radicalized, so too, others radically entrench against them trying to hold together what used to be.
How can we move toward more stability in such diversity and change? When economic disparity glares, when the wealthy few ignore and police the many, when good living wages, effective education, and mental health services are not available, people are stressed and instability grows.
If we approach the needs of both the alienated and the fearful with compassionate understanding, and if we respond with wise intervention, we can begin to build the stability to stem the flow of radicalized youth and the fear of their reactionary counterparts. As the pulling apart of these elements diminishes, the center will, in fact, hold.
If we have begun on this gentle and powerful path, let us continue. If we have not, let us, in our own ways, begin.
Patricia Bennett has taught English to refugees and immigrants for forty years. She has also lived and worked in Egypt with Fulbright, in refugee camps in Indonesia and the Philippines, and in Cambodia. She recently retired as Professor Emerita from Grossmont College and now does intercultural and language training and freelance writing. Her website is www.interculturalclarity.com
The views and opinions are those of the author and not necessarily those of the East County Magazine. Those with comments for consideration should contact the editor at editor@eastcountymagazine.org.
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