Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Welcoming Families From Around the World


Families Country of Origin: American Samoa
American Samoa is a small archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean and is comprised of five volcanic islands (Tutuila, Ta'u, Ofu, Olosega, Aunu'u, Nu'utele) and two coral atolls (Swain's and Rose Islands). Tutuila contains about two thirds of the total area and is home to 95% of the 64 000 islanders.
In the time of 1000 B.C. Southeast Asian immmigrants arrived in the Samoan islands and from there they settled the rest of Polynesia.
First sparsely contacts with Europeans began in the early 1700s, intensified with the arrival of English missionaries and traders in the 1830s.
International rivalries had been settled by the Treaty of Berlin in 1899 in which Germany and the US divided the Samoan archipelago. The US formally occupied its portion.
Despite of modern influences Samoan people still hold firmly to "Fa'asamoa", the traditional Samoan way, related to their language, dress, food, customs and even property (http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/american_samoa.htm#Culture).

Five ways that I will prepare for this family’s arrival would be
*Educate myself

*Educate the other early childhood professionals that will also be assisting with this family.

*Prepare the students by discussing the family’s country of origin.  Discuss with the children how they may feel if they were moving to a new country as well as how we could make the child and their family feel welcomed.

*Display items in the classroom that would be familiar to the child.

*Locate music from the country of origin that they are relocating from and play it as background music in the classroom.

The preparations that I would take will help the child and family to feel welcome in their new environment.  It will help them know that I care about them and respect where they are coming from.  I would hope they would see that I was making an effort in understanding their background to assist their child in the relocation.  

2 comments:

  1. Great insightful information about American Samoa. This information has truly feed my information that I did not know. This information is a good starting point for anyone getting to know about this culture.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Creating the environment were the child feels welcomed makes it so much easier to deal with the transition from their place of origin to ours. Having to come from were you are comfortable and everyone looks and sounds just like you to a place were the person doesn't even speak your language is very difficult to do and deal with. However, making these small preparations can make it a lot more bearable to deal with.

    ReplyDelete