Immigrant Academics and Cultural Challenges in a Global Environme ...

More recent studies have refined similar findings about causes of negative (or tolerant) host attitudes toward immigrants. Husfeldt (2006, p. 356, citing Jonas, 1998) correlated positive attitudes toward immigrants with host and immigrants belonging to the same social-status category. The economic-threat theory seems to provide a good explanation for the psychology behind extreme antiforeign sentiments, especially among local working class/status groups. This theory explains that these antiforeign sentiments act as a defense of in-group privileges, positions, and jobs against the perceived threat of these things being taken by immigrants (Husfeldt, 2006, p. 356). When applied to high-status immigrant academics, intolerant host behavior and general prejudice could be a result of the realization, especially by working-class host members, that immigrant academics possesses qualities or qualifications that are inconsistent with the stereotypical picture of immigrants as lower class aliens. The immigrants possess qualifications and skills that qualify them for jobs which, in the host population’s view, should be preserved for locals. Hence, when Y. L. Teresa Ting, with a visible Chinese physiognomy (chapter 3), introduced herself as a university staff member, some Calabrians automatically presupposed that she must have been employed at the campus restaurant (where supposedly a Chinese immigrant should be found). A job/status ceiling for minorities seems to sometimes settle on the minds of some host members and is displayed, many times probably quite innocently, but, nonetheless, to the occasional grief and psychological hurt of new immigrants. It should be noted though, that such host-member expectations in North America generally coincide with the reality of the underemployment of many highly educated and skilled immigrants—especially, non-European immigrants (De Jong & Madamba, 2001; Grant & Nadin, 2005; McNicol & Dachsel, 2004). S. Opper made a similar observation regarding the majority of immigrants to Sweden in the ’80s: “[T]he nature of the employment which foreign citizens in Sweden obtain does not always correspond with their educational background…highly educated immigrants [had to] take lower skilled jobs” (1983, p. 200).