Acculturation Case Study - L. Stewart

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Acculturation Case Study Lamonica Stewart PSYC 405: Cross-Cultural Psychology Dr. Robyn Mixon September 22, 2023

Subject of Case Study: Sammy Sosa According to Weeks (2020), Sammy Sosa was born into a poor Dominican family in the city of San Pedro de Macoris. His father passed away when he was seven years old. After his father passed away, he and his siblings took residence in an abandoned hospital. As a youth, he helped support his family by selling oranges in the streets and shining shoes. In 1986, he emigrated to the United States and began playing baseball for a minor league team in Florida. Three years later, he began his career in major league baseball with the Texas Rangers. Shortly thereafter, he was traded to the Chicago White Sox where he hit fifteen home runs in his first full season with the team. Sosa began playing with the Chicago Cubs in 1992. He established himself as a solid home run hitter, but his career peaked when he competed neck in neck with the St. Louis Cardinals’ Mark McGuire to beat the record of 61 home runs in a single season. McGwire ended up breaking the record with 70 home runs to Sosa’s 66. Sosa was selected as the National League Most Valuable Player (MVP). The next six seasons Sosa was a stable hitter for the Cubs. In 2003, he began to have issues. He was discovered to be using a corked bat and received a suspension for several games. Additionally, he was accused of using performance enhancing drugs which he continuously denied, even in front of a Congressional panel in 2005. He was then traded to the Baltimore Orioles. Even though he did not play in 2006, he returned to the league in 2007 after being traded back to the Texas Rangers. This was his final year playing in the league. Over his 18 year career in baseball, Sosa has been recognized as a member of the National League All-Star team seven times. He scored a career high of 609 home runs and his batting average is .273. In 2009, he was again implicated in a scandal involving performance enhancing drugs. A report revealed that he tested positive for a drug in 2003. The congressional committee decided

not to prosecute him for perjury in his 2005 testimony. He created the Sammy Sosa Foundation to raise funds for underprivileged children in Chicago and his home country, the Dominican Republic. His current net worth is an estimated $70 million. Berry’s Model of Acculturation Berry’s model of acculturation proposes four strategies that individuals or groups could possibly adopt when presented with a new and different culture or society. The strategies are:  Assimilation – the individual/group adopts the behaviors and customs of the dominant culture and shuns their own culture, resulting in a high level of integration into the dominant culture  Integration – the individual/group retains their own culture and actively participates in the dominant culture; often the individual/group identifies with both cultures  Separation – the individual/group maintains their own culture and largely avoids interaction or contact with the dominant culture; possibly leads to isolation  Marginalization – the individual/group does not maintain their own culture or accept/interact with the dominant culture; often leads to disconnection from all cultures

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With respect to Sammy Sosa, it must be considered that he is a proud Dominican born major league baseball player who spent the entirety of his baseball career in the United States. Comparing his experiences to each tenet of Berry’s model:  Assimilation: Even though he demonstrated some characteristics of assimilation by learning and becoming proficient in English, Sosa still presented himself as a proud Dominican and integrated much of his background and culture into his American life. He did not shun or expressed embarrassment over his cultural heritage or background. Due to the nature of his occupation, he felt the need for effective communication with his colleagues and fans. Since he supported and demonstrated his connection with his background instead of denying it, assimilation would not be a good descriptor for him  Separation: Sosa cannot be considered an example of separation because he loved to interact with fans and enjoyed his fame as a prolific major league baseball star. Although he demonstrated his cultural pride, he did not remove himself or shied away from American culture. In order for him to be considered an example of separation, he would have had to be a recluse from mainstream American culture and spend the most time with those who share his cultural heritage.  Marginalization: Since marginalization requires an individual to shun his own as well as the dominant culture, it would not apply to Sosa. He was very active in his own culture as well as the American culture and made no effort to remove himself from either.  Integration: Despite the fact that he lives and spends most of his time in America and moved to the United States to pursue a career in baseball, Sosa maintained a very solid connection to his Dominican Hispanic heritage. He was often represented as a celebrity of Dominican descent internationally and whenever he hit a home run he would wave a

Dominican flag. The Sammy Sosa Foundation he created raises funding to support underprivileged children in the Dominican Republic as well as Chicago, the city where experienced the height of his career. It is very safe to say that his acculturation mostly aligns with integration since he accepted into American culture while boldly retaining his cultural heritage. Although Sammy Sosa can be considered an example of integration when compared to Berry’s model of acculturation, his most recent public photos could possibly call that determination into question. In 2009, he was photographed with skin that was strikingly whiter than his original rich brown tone and eyes that were green instead of hazel. He was ridiculed and even referred to as racist as a result. He asserted that he was using a skin cream that lightened his skin as a side effect, but many people believe that he was whitening his skin to gain greater acceptance. This could be attributable to his desire to be recorded into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame, an honor that has eluded him since the revelation of the positive drug test in 2003. Many believe that Sosa has a “color complex”, which means that a person believes that whitening their skin and modifying other features to appear whiter will gain them greater acceptance in the mainstream culture. Despite his physical modifications, he has not waivered from his heritage. His new skin tone, however, makes a pretty strong case for some degree of assimilation.

References Hill: Shades of gray in Sammy Sosa’s skin. (n.d.). ESPN.com. http://www.espn.com/espn/page2/story?sportCat=mlb&page=hill/091113 May, J. (2023, August 3). Sammy Sosa goes viral for skin bleaching pics. Diario AS . https://en.as.com/mlb/sammy-sosa-goes-viral-for-skin-bleaching-pics-n/ Sosa, S., & Breton, M. (2000). Sammy Sosa: An Autobiography . Weeks, J. (2020). The Umpire Was Blind!: Controversial Calls by MLB's Men in Blue . McFarland. Worthy, L. D. (2020, July 27). Berry’s model of acculturation . Pressbooks. https://open.maricopa.edu/culturepsychology/chapter/berrys-model-of- acculturation/#:~:text=Berry%20proposed%20a%20model%20of,identity%20and %20characteristics%3F%E2%80%9D).

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