V. Culture and Personal Identity, continued

A growing phenomenon in today’s complex societies is individuals who self-identify as bicultural or multicultural. One example of a bicultural individual would be a person who understands and is able to interact effectively and easily in two cultures, oftentimes a heritage culture and the culture into which he or his family has immigrated.

A bicultural person may speak more than one language fluently. Individuals who self-identify as multicultural typically acknowledge multiple cultural and/or ethnic heritages and may be multilingual. Such individuals can be particularly effective in health care settings because they can function as cultural brokers within these organizations.

Cross, Bazron, Dennis, and Isaacs (1989) describe another example of biculturalism in which members of racial and ethnic groups, who are not recent immigrants to the U.S., view themselves as bicultural and needing to navigate between the “majority culture” and the “minority culture.” The biculturalism of these individuals may be overlooked by the health and mental health care system because of assumptions about their complete assimilation.

Many bicultural persons are able to move fluidly from one culture to another, but for some, the differences in cultures present problems of marginality or relational difficulties. Some individuals may be marginalized in the sense that they have lost the security and support of their native cultures and have not been able to integrate into another culture. Such individuals are often at risk for poor mental and physical health. This issue of cultural marginalization is especially critical when considering the health needs of refugees, many of whom may have left their cultural homeland unwillingly or under duress.