Psychology of Immigration
Let me welcome you in Hungary and at ELTE PPK! Is this your first Fulbright scholarship?
Yes, it is my first Fulbright, but definitely not the first semester spent abroad as a visiting professor. I have been fortunate to travel the world and gain first-hand insights on how to navigate intercultural differences. Getting back to Fulbright: I have helped many of my students apply for Fulbright grants when a colleague of mine at Kenyon College suggested I should try myself – and so it happened.
Why did you pick Hungary as your next destination?
I myself am of an immigrant background, of Puerto Rican descent, and so I understand what it means to live between two cultures. This has led me to study intercultural contact as a psychologist and so as a trained therapist I’ve always been interested in how those from immigrant backgrounds navigate their surroundings. All of this played a role in developing my interest in cross-national views on immigration which is a topic I have studied in the United States, as well as in Switzerland, a country of multiple languages and identities. Given this interest, and these experiences, I was interested in studying immigration in Hungary because this issue has been so important here. My hope is to write a comparative paper on how immigration has been viewed across these three different sites. This paper would be followup to a current book that I am co-authoring with my colleague from Hope College, Deirdre Johnston, on global education that documents how professors can teach intercultural tolerance and acceptance.
What courses are you teaching at ELTE PPK?
I teach a course on cross-cultural psychology, focussing on questions like 'Is there a universal way to raise children? How do people of different backgrounds handle distress and anxiety?’ The second course is an elective on the psychology of immigration, where we looking, among other things, what are the predictors of anti-immigrant sentiments and what is the role of the media in shaping our views on immigration.
What are your first impressions of Hungary and Budapest?
Although some of my peers in the US warned me to be careful while here, I have to say that I have been wonderfully surprised at how open and welcoming everyone has been with me! While no doubt differences do exist, I feel that my role as a Fulbrighter is to be open and to use every opportunity I have to learn. I have received a very warm welcome here, with people eager to get to talk to me. Additionally, as am an amateur photographer, Budapest is really a visual delight and so documenting this beautiful city on instagram has also been a wonderful experience!
What is your experience with your students here as compared to your classes back in the US?
Here I was pleasantly surprised to find that the students were much more independent than I was used to. Additionally, the classes here are much more diverse than at my home institution. For example, at ELTE, I teach mixed classes of Hungarian and international students and it appears that these classes may be the first opportunity they have to meet each other. And while the language barrier can sometimes make some of my students a bit shy to speak, I feel that my role as a professor is to engage them and make sure they all speak and are heard. To this end, my advice to my students (and also to myself) in intercultural settings is: Keep trying, because although you will make mistakes, you cannot learn without making mistakes - and so have a sense of humour and laugh a lot because that is what makes learning fun!
Follow the Fulbright blog of Irene López , Ph.D covering her visit at ELTE PPK, Hungary http://www.irenelopezphd.com/bad-choices---a-fulbright-blog