My parents emigrated from Haiti when I was three years-old and my sister and I soon followed. I grew up in Marin County, California where I learned quickly to assimilate to the American culture. Throughout my childhood, I seesawed between the very conservative culture of my parents and the often times “liberal” culture of my peers. By the time I completed high school, I began to realize that I felt much more comfortable with the idea of being a Haitian immigrant in American society and started gravitating towards more of my parents’ cultural norms. When I completed college, I stood firm with the ability to enter and exit either culture with great ease whenever necessary.
Now married to a first generation immigrant, and raising two children who are considered second generation immigrants, I often find myself struggling to maintain their sense of comfort with both the American and Haitian culture. I am constantly confronted with issues for which there is no right or wrong answer.
Through this blog, I hope that parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, caregivers and children facing multicultural dilemmas will share their advice, experiences, questions and frustrations so that we can all perhaps continue through this journey with more support and knowledge.
Balanced Melting Pot 
Hi! Just wandering around and saw your site which makes me want to make some comments.
My parents are not actually immigrants but my whole family moved to Shanghai from my hometown Taiwan when i was 3. I went to local schools and had been exposed to the cultural norm in this city. Inadvertently I was assimilated into Shanghai. But like you, I seesawed between the culture of Taiwan and Shanghai because of my native-born parents’ influence, when I grew older, I prefer to stick to the culture of my hometown. However, my parents do not force me to exclude Shanghai culture or to embrace only Taiwan culture, they just make everything natural to us, and I think it doesn’t matter which culture you are to choose, you just need to appreciate and respect both(or all) cultures that you are exposed to so that you can fit into the society better, since every culture or country is no longer isolated in this globalized world.
Welcome, Sarabeth! It’s fantastic that your parents have made it so easy for you to hold on to both your cultures. That’s exactly the kind of environment that I would like to create for my children. There is nothing negative about adopting the norms of more than one culture – especially, like you said – in this world of disappearing borders.
Hi,
I’m glad that I came across your blog. You have some very useful and interesting posts there. I will put a link to your blog from my site, if this is okay with you.
I help run a store called HiSunglasses.com; it’s not really a big one, but it’s getting there. Please have a look. If you could possibly place a small link of my site, that would be really great.
Have a great day and hope to hear from you.
Happy blogging.
Hi! What an interesting and important topic for a blog. You insights will be so important to parents, teachers and anyone who is involved with this type of balancing act. I have recently started a blog to help those interested sift through the literature on how immigrant children are best supported according to the latest research. I hope you will visit it and/or link to it. http://newimmigrationbeat.blogspot.com/
Good luck on your journey!
Thank you! Your site looks very informative and I look forward to reading it.