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).