If you picture a “foreigner,” what do you see? Roget’s 21st Century Thesaurus defines a foreigner simply as a person from a foreign country. Yet among the synonyms it lists for the word are stranger, outsider, alien and greenhorn.
Would you want your sister or your daughter to marry one?
I married a foreigner. And now my Austrian husband and I are both foreigners in Switzerland, where we’ve lived for the last seven years. Our 6-year-old daughter, who was born here, is a mixture of three cultures: American, Austrian and Swiss. She’s the unique product of an intercultural family.
Intercultural families are defined by their diversity. Just ask Dianne Kiefer Dicks, who edited and published “Cupid’s Wild Arrows: Intercultural Romance and Its Consequences.” The book is a collection of essays by people with experience in intercultural relationships.
Dicks was inundated with almost 700 submissions for the project, representing a wide variety of cultural combinations. What amazed her was that only five of the authors portrayed intercultural relationships negatively.
“I had myself been prone to think that an intercultural marriage must be more difficult,” says the Indianapolis native. “I had to revise my own opinion to think that maybe intercultural marriages weren’t any more difficult, and that in fact, maybe there are even advantages. The partners come into the marriage with an appreciation of each other’s differences.”
For any two people, marriage is an adjustment. For two people who have grown up in different countries, with different languages and customs and assumptions about the way life works, marriage is more than a union: It is a weaving of cultures. In the process of blending their pasts into a common future, intercultural couples must make many choices.
The end result is a unique and multicolored family tapestry.
I met my husband in a gymnastics class in Chicago in 1991. On our first date we went ballroom dancing. After spending 27 of the next 30 days together, we decided we couldn’t live apart. We found the perfect little house in Hinsdale. I remember standing in the kitchen with the landlord, signing the rental agreement. Peter paused as he filled in the blanks. He didn’t know my last name.
Many intercultural couples have similar stories of whirlwind courtships. Liz Slaughter-Ek met her Swedish husband, Anders, on a blind date in Chicago in 1994.
“I knew after three dates — in five days — that he was the one,” she says.
Edessa Ramos was scuba diving in the Philippines when she met a vacationer from Switzerland named Daniel Ott.
“We ended up talking the whole night on the beach while watching the moon and the fishing lights out at sea,” she remembers. “When he returned to Switzerland, he called me every morning (and we talked) for at least an hour. Five months later, he invited me to Switzerland to try it out and learn German. I flew to Zurich and never left.”
Of course, falling in love at first sight isn’t restricted to intercultural couples. But the circumstances surrounding their relationships are often unique. For two people from different countries, the end of a job assignment, vacation or school year can bring the threat of permanent separation. Often, the most expedient way for the relationship to continue is for the lovers to marry. And so they do.
But relationships that begin like fairy tales ultimately reach a point where real life intrudes. And after their “honeymoon” phase ends, intercultural couples often discover that they have a whole host of new issues to address.
Whenever two people from different cultures marry, it’s likely that one will end up living in a “foreign” country. According to Rania Bahnan Buechi, who practices therapy for individuals and couples in Switzerland, this can be a difficult situation for a couple. Usually in a marriage, the balance of power fluctuates, she says. When intercultural couples live in the country of one of the spouses, the spouse from that country tends to have more influence because he — or she — understands the country’s rules and norms.
Adapting to a new culture wasn’t easy for Beth Pessl-Rossi. Originally from Winnetka, she moved to Austria in November 1991 to be with Helmut Pessl. They were married in March 1992.
“I had a lot of trouble adjusting,” she remembers. “I moved here at the age of 31 and had difficulty learning German. I felt very isolated and had trouble finding the international community. I’ve found the cultural differences to be difficult to grasp. People here are very closed and provincial. I’m from such a different background that I often find no common ground.”
The transition was difficult for both spouses.
“I didn’t know how to improve the situation. Her unhappiness made me feel helpless,” Pessl says.
In the beginning, Beth Pessl-Rossi relied heavily on her parents in Winnetka for support.
“I tried to call her at least once a week and talk to her,” says Eleanor Rossi, Beth’s mother. “She didn’t complain, but I could tell she was going through a difficult time. Neither of them realized how difficult it was going to be for her.”
Finally, in 1996, Beth Pessl-Rossi started a support group for English-speaking women. She now has “a group of friends that I could call sisters,” as well as a job teaching English, which she enjoys. She has found her niche.
For Phoebe Hoyt, who grew up in Evanston, adjusting to life abroad was never really a problem. She moved to Italy in 1985, right out of college.
“I had imagined spending the rest of my life in Italy from the moment I chose to come here,” she says. In 1987 she met her Italian husband, Guido Volla. They were married in 1989. Two weeks after the wedding, they moved to London.
“Everyone, Italian and American friends and family, agreed that it was a great way to start out a marriage as we would be on neutral ground,” she says.
But living in a neutral country doesn’t eliminate differences in the way two people from different cultures approach life. This becomes especially apparent once children are born.
Raising children is the real test of how well a couple has learned to handle their many differences, says Dugan Romano, author of “Intercultural Marriage: Promises & Pitfalls.”
For intercultural couples, the birth of a child raises many questions. Among them: Will the family use more than one language to communicate? Where and how will holidays be celebrated? How will societal factors influence the family? And what effect will the extended family — and in particular, the in-laws — have on the way the children are raised?
Children of intercultural couples generally become multilingual through a combination of family and community exposure. Edessa Ramos Ott, who grew up in the Philippines and moved to Chicago at the age of 27, lives with her husband and two sons in a German-speaking area of Switzerland. Daniel Ott uses Swiss German, the local language, to speak to their 9-month-old son, Andreas, and Edessa’s 11-year-old son Gusty. In the community, Gusty’s dominant language is Swiss German. In school, it’s high German. Ramos Ott speaks to her children in English with “sometimes a sprinkling of Tagalog.”
When the entire family is together, they speak only English. It sounds complicated, but according to Ramos Ott, it actually works quite well.
My husband and I, on the other hand, use the “one person-one language” approach with our daughter. From the time she was born, Katy was addressed in German by my husband and in English by me. In the beginning, this gave her a curious view of the world. We first realized this when our friend Dave came to visit from Chicago. Katy repeatedly addressed English-speaking Dave in German because, in her experience, German was the language that “Daddies” used.
Most intercultural couples manage to give their children at least a working knowledge of both parents’ languages. When it comes to celebrating holidays, however, families take a range of approaches.
“We rarely celebrate American holidays because few others here do, and I just plain forget about them,” says Phoebe Hoyt Volla, who moved back to Italy with her husband and their two children in 1992.
“Sometimes I’ll dress the children for Halloween, and once they went to the other apartments in the building educating the neighbors with phrases such as, `No, you have to give us something, like candy.’ You should have seen what they came back with: salami, after-dinner mints . . . .”
Beth Pessl-Rossi, however, finds that she misses the American way of celebrating holidays.
“Although I do my best to include the things I like,” she says, “I often feel homesick. For instance, at Thanksgiving I invite as many Americans as possible. I miss the men watching football and the women together in the kitchen.”
The Slaughter-Eks and their two toddlers celebrate both Swedish and American holidays. At Christmas, they combine the two countries’ customs, opening presents from Swedish relatives on Christmas Eve at Anders’ parents’ house, then opening stockings, gifts to each other and presents from U.S. relatives at home on Christmas Day. The typically American holidays — Halloween, Thanksgiving and the 4th of July — are spent with other American-Swedish couples whom they’ve met through the local American women’s club.
Introducing the languages of both parents and maintaining the traditions of both countries are ways in which an intercultural couple can shape their family. But there are also factors over which the couple has less control.
Among these are attitudes toward families and the role of women in the local society.
In Sweden, says Anders Ek, “the prevailing attitude is that the family comes first. Fathers — and mothers — aren’t expected to work long hours or travel a lot.”
Health care is basically free for children, as is education. According to Ek, the government pays parents for up to 450 days of maternity leave.
Switzerland puts a different sort of emphasis on the family.
“Women are overwhelmingly expected to stay home with small children,” says Edessa Ramos Ott. Swiss schools generally close at lunchtime so that families can eat together. For a woman who would rather work than cook, this is difficult. Back in Chicago, Ramos Ott had a job that she loved. Now she lives in a country where “there is really no social pressure for a woman to work outside the home. She is actually encouraged to devote her time to raising the kids.”
European families — rarely as mobile as Americans — often have the benefit of one or both sets of grandparents nearby to help out with young children.
For intercultural families, proximity to the in-laws can be a mixed blessing. There is always the chance that they won’t approve of the way their grandchild is being raised.
“My mother-in-law is a very strong lady and is potentially very dominating,” says Phoebe Hoyt Volla. The Vollas’ children are often looked after by their Italian grandparents. “At times my husband and I have to remind them that our children are indeed our children,” Hoyt Volla says, “but the truth is that if our children see their grandparents a lot, it’s because we all want it that way.”
And for Beth Pessl-Rossi, the birth of her son created a bond with her Austrian in-laws.
“I made sure they knew that I wanted them to be a part of Leo’s life, because I wanted Leo to have a close relationship with at least one set of grandparents,” she says. “They were so pleased to be invited into our little family that since then, our relationship has been very good.”
Like the Ramos Otts and the Hoyt-Vollas, the Pessl-Rossis and the Slaughter-Eks, my husband and I have created a family from a combination of different cultural beliefs and habits and traditions and attitudes. Periodic disagreements over the “right” way to do things are to be expected. But according to Buechi, “If an intercultural family is going to work, you have to combine elements from both cultures. You have to find a way to grow and a way to blend.”
For couples who are able to weave together the threads of their previous lives, the rewards are high. There are many advantages to being an intercultural family. In the words of Daniel Ott: “It enriches our lives and our way of looking at the world. It develops tolerance for differences. It encourages a love of culture and the desire to travel and experience other countries. And for sure it will make our children grow up into more interesting, profound individuals.”
For the last month, my daughter has been carrying a black velvet purse. She wove this purse in her Swiss kindergarten, and she carries it proudly. On the front are stripes of yarn in a multitude of colors. The colors are subtle on the left, vibrant on the right; together, they form an arresting pattern.
And as I admire her creation, suddenly I realize that in it, my 6-year-old Austrian-American daughter has captured the very essence of our intercultural family.
TIPS ON BLENDING CULTURES
Books can provide practical advice as well as personal accounts of the many issues affecting intercultural couples and families, both in the U.S. and overseas. Selected titles are listed below. For others, consult your bookstore, the Internet or a public library.
– “Cupid’s Wild Arrows: Intercultural Romance and Its Consequences,” edited by Dianne Dicks. Available via the Internet: http://www.bergli.ch. The book costs about $15.
– “Diverse Identities: Classic Multicultural Essays,” edited by James D. Lester (NTC Publishing Group, $15.95).
– “Intercultural Marriage: Promises & Pitfalls,” second edition, by Dugan Romano (Intercultural Press Inc., $18.95).
– “Life with Two Languages: An Introduction to Bilingualism,” by Francois Grosjean (Harvard University Press, $19.50).
– “Mixed Matches: How to Create Successful Interracial, Interethnic, and Interfaith Relationships,” by Joel Crohn (Fawcett Books, $10.40).
In addition, for Americans abroad, expatriate organizations can often provide a sense of familiarity. The Federation of American Women’s Clubs Overseas (FAWCO) is an umbrella organization with more than 16,000 members in 71 member clubs worldwide. FAWCO publishes booklets about issues related to living abroad, lobbies Congress on issues of interest to Americans abroad, gives out educational awards to members and their children and sponsors committees on global concerns and U.S. citizens’ issues.
The individual clubs offer American women a way to maintain their culture through contact with other Americans in their communities. For more information, consult the FAWCO Web site: http://www.fawco.org.
