Remote acculturation: The “Americanization” of Jamaican Islanders

Twenty-first century globalization forces of technology and trade transport cultures across territorial borders. Cultural exchange now occurs in the absence of first-hand continuous contact that accompanies population migration. We propose and test a modern type of acculturation— remote acculturation—associated with indirect and/or intermittent contact between geographically separate groups. Our findings uncover indicators of remote acculturation in behavior, identity, family values, intergenerational discrepancies, and parent–adolescent conflict among families from one culture (Jamaican Islanders) to a geographically separate culture (European American) that emulate traditional acculturation of emigrants from the same ethnic group (Jamaican Immigrants) now settled in that foreign nation (United States of America).