Crossing Cultures – Disabilities Represented by International Students

Perceptions about people with disabilities vary widely from country to country. There is the actual reality of a disability (e.g., being unable to see or walk, having diabetes, etc.) and there is the complex interaction of culture, economy, political climate, infrastructure, religion and geographic location within a country that contributes to the conceptual experience of disability. Because so much of the experience of disability comes from outside the condition itself, disability is culturally defined and cannot be fully understood apart from the cultural context.

“As advisors, we learn more as we meet each specific student with a disability. We have a good grasp of disability from a U.S. perspective, but when you add on the cultural, social and economic components related to what country they are from, it adds a whole lot of caveats that are pretty complex,” says Julie Pitts, Program Director of the Intercultural Center at Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kansas.

Each culture has different roles and expectations for people with disabilities. Many people with disabilities in the United States are accustomed to being active in their communities and equally able to access college education. However, in many places where international students with disabilities come from, they are the exception in being able to access higher education and travel abroad.

For students from certain cultures, it may be necessary to encourage self-advocacy skills, especially if students arrive in the U.S. unfamiliar with their rights or lacking confidence to voice their needs and concerns.

For students traveling to communities in the United States that may have more accessibility than they are used to at home, they may overestimate the support they will need. Some may be accustomed to relying on personal assistance rather than adaptive equipment or environmental adaptations. If a family member provides assistance to compensate for inaccessibility at home, participants may assume they will need an assistant to fill that role once enrolled in the United States. Some may have family and friends from abroad living in their communities, which is why they chose the particular community college, while others will need to adjust to independent living for the first time.

For example, a blind participant who usually uses a reader may be unfamiliar with the option of using a computer with speech synthesis to read textbooks. Similarly, a student who uses a wheelchair might not be aware that colleges and universities in the United States and many other countries have disabled student services offices that will assist them to address mobility issues, or that international students can access these services. Students must be made aware of the services and assistance available from the community college. They should also be informed of the process required to access these services. Further, they need to know what is expected of them, such as if they need to advocate for themselves to receive services or if they will automatically receive assistance.

International students with disabilities may benefit from talking to a peer with a disability who has already traveled to the United States, or with a U.S. community college student with a similar disability. Peers can provide advice on what to expect once in the United States, and how to prepare for life in a new environment. International students may also be interested in meeting people with disabilities once they arrive and settle in. These connections may have practical implications, such as learning to use public transportation from a local expert, or may offer participants additional opportunities to socialize with members of the local community and learn about common issues and experiences. If a student is interested in any or all of these possibilities, international student advisors should be prepared to refer the student to disability organizations or hosts with family members with disabilities.

"When I moved [to Ohlone College in Fremont, California] I wasn’t getting out and socializing that much. After about six months I got involved in school activities and with the deaf club, which I am actually president of now," says Isidore Niyongabo, a Deaf student from Burundi. "I started challenging myself to get culturally involved. People tell me now that I’m a very popular person – I don’t know about that but it’s what my friends say."

At the same time, it is important to recognize that not everyone with a disability identifies with the disability community. A disabled student may or may not want to connect with local people with disabilities. International student advisors should not assume that because an international student has a disability he or she will be interested in disability issues beyond the accommodations they need for themselves. Disability is only one aspect of a person’s life and the cross-cultural experience will have much more breadth than just the disability-related challenges and triumphs. International study requires a willingness to give up comfort and familiarity in exchange for a broadening, challenging experience. Just like for other, more pragmatic aspects of an international experience, flexibility and curiosity are key to learning about and appreciating cultural differences.

For a more complete description of the types of disabilities listed below, read the prior “Specific Disabilities of Students Studying Abroad” article.

Mental and Physical Health-Related Disabilities

“We can’t afford to think that people are coming without their own issues to confront. But, they aren’t going to talk about them the same way that Americans do. It’s a way of discovering and thinking about: How do we assist them to advocate for themselves?” says Janie Worrall, Student Services Manager in Admissions at Pima Community College in Arizona, who was formerly with their International Student Services Office.

Students with disabilities from abroad may experience isolation when in the United States, far from the support of family in an American culture that values individualism, space, and privacy. Research since the late 1960s has shown that the extended family unit and community in developing nations provides more support and greater recovery for those with mental disabilities than treating the condition solely as a medical concern needing medications, according to a 2005 Washington Post article. The community college campus is often non-residential, which can further isolate international students when they need support the most. On the other hand, the supportive nature of a community college can be critical for students who reach out to fellow classmates and other members of the college community.

Although far from family, Youssef Hamami, a Moroccan student studying at Tidewater Community College in Virginia Beach, Virginia, found comfort and support when he was first diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS). "I have friends, both from the U.S. and international ones, and teachers who were very helpful to me when this happened – inviting me to Christmas dinner or cooking a Moroccan meal for me. I had help from my pharmacy too where I get my medication; they have my telephone number and call to ask how I am doing," says Hamami, who has maintained his high grade point average while learning to manage his new condition.

International students don’t realize the role that her office can play related to policy modifications or immigration rules related to disability needs or medical hospitalization.

For other international students, the pressure that their families put on them based on how their performance will reflect on the family, may add to mental or chronic health crises when in the United States. “With our students who have depression and bipolar disorder from Pakistan and India, [respectively], there was a lot of pressure from their families to go into engineering. They are constantly fighting that battle of what their parents expect and what they can do,” says Carol Duss, International Student Admissions Coordinator at Austin Community College International Student Office. If the students aren’t good at engineering, Duss will meet with them and sometimes discover she needs to address their mental health issues before looking further into academic solutions.

Duss says that international students don’t realize the role her office can play related to policy modifications or immigration rules in the case of disability needs or medical hospitalization. “One student from England has a degenerative nerve disease that is under control, but it sometimes flares up when she’s under stress and that happened during finals,” recalls Duss. “So we connected her to the disability office, and said, ‘If you have problems just let us know and we can do something about it.’” They were able to get her a reduced course load for the semester when she was experiencing medical issues related to her disability.

Both Worrall and Duss recall students who may have struggled with psychological or physical conditions for many months, and yet returned to continue their studies successfully. While some international students will try to manage their conditions on their own, others will learn to work with counselors to arrange services and reduce barriers they are experiencing while in school. “A woman with depression saw a counselor, and it was really hard for her to talk about what was going on because she was from a very conservative Japanese family,” says Worrall. “Watching her re-emerge back into her life was really rewarding.” In Japan, there is a strong cultural taboo against repeated, vague complaints, so depression with its many symptoms, is often not discussed, reports a 2005 New York Times article. This may make it initially difficult for students from some cultural backgrounds to share their personal, emotional thoughts with a counselor.

An introduction to how mental health and chronic health conditions are viewed in the United States, and the role of the counselor, is important to address early with students before issues arise. For example, some foreign students may expect counselors to express their opinions, provide nurturing or give directives, according to an article on counseling foreign students. The students may also want others who provide support (e.g. fellow nationals, extended family in the area, etc.) to come to counseling sessions. Other students may fear that treatment will mean they will be sent home or that their family will be notified, which would bring shame to their families. Talking with the student about different options for treatment in the United States, confidentiality rules and their rights if they have a disabling condition can alleviate some of these concerns.

Many community college campuses don’t have residence halls, so there aren’t housing staff looking out for signs of depression, diabetic shock or other disorders amongst international students. In addition, the international office is often located on one of several campuses spread throughout the area, and students generally come into the office on a voluntary basis instead of for regular check-ins with advisors. “We always included as part of our orientation, a talk about the notion of depression – not entirely related to a disabling condition but at least a mental health concern,” says Worrall about their international student orientation at Pima Community College. Other international advisors or disability staff will set up regular meetings with international students that have chronic concerns.

Also, when managing health or emotional issues, many international students will turn to others from their home countries who are also in the United States as students, faculty, or community members, a common practice in cultures where elders or religious advisors play this important role. The shared native language, cultural empathy and proximity are among the features that make foreign students seek out these guides instead of U.S. counselors. These culturally-relevant advisors also may understand the stressors of being in another country, worries of political unrest or natural disasters back home, financial or immigration concerns, anxieties upon returning home, and other cultural adjustment issues. International advisors and disability staff can encourage these support networks by offering trainings for the international community on mental health, such as how to identify signs of depression or suicide, services offered by the community college, peer support systems, and who to contact in the event of an emergency.

On the other hand, foreign nationals may not understand or have positive views of a student’s disability. For example, a student from Germany wants to attend Houston Community College in the United States where her disability – rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia – is not seen as a barrier to her career potential as it is in Germany. In cases such as this one, local disability advocates or support groups may be a better match for students who have disabilities that are more widely understood in the United States than in their home countries. "The MS Society has sent me newsletters, and they tell me not to think about how MS will affect me in my future, but just think of my life now. I’m not discouraged; MS will not deter me from what I want to do. I’m going for it," says Hamami, the Moroccan student who is a civil engineering major and plans to continue his studies at a four-year U.S. university after finishing at Tidewater Community College in Virginia.

Learning or Cognitive Disabilities

“The undiagnosed learning disabilities are what I saw the most, especially in students coming from the wealthy families where they are investing a lot of money because they want the students to have the American degree. These students were really struggling,” says Worrall about international students arriving at her community college in Arizona. “In general, they are quieter and don’t know why they are not successful. Maybe no one has talked to them about having a learning disability. A lot of these disabilities are western concepts.”

Sometimes, when international students were willing, Worrall was able to find a low cost diagnostician to provide the testing the students needed to qualify for disability services. “What I don’t know is if they ever shared that information with their family because they had the funds to do the testing,” she says. “They got accommodations after they were tested and it made a difference for them.”

At Northern Virginia Community College’s interpreting office, Mark Kreidler sees international deaf students who didn’t learn a sign language until later in life. “There are multiple issues such as learning disabilities that go along with language delay and create additional issues of what is the primary disability,” he says. “Many don’t have their learning disability documented, so they are only focused on getting sign language interpreters. If they didn’t have a language-rich environment, it definitely impacts them not only in their ability to learn and master American Sign Language but also English.”

The concept of a learning disability is not unfamiliar to all international students however. Duss had a student from England bring documentation, and Angela Adame-Smith, who works with international students in the Student Recruitment and Admissions department at Seminole Community College in Florida, had a Jamaican student with a learning disability do the same. “Her learning disability was identified in high school. They had given her longer periods to take her exams in Jamaica, and when she came to Florida she went to a local college first and they had given her accommodations as well,” says Adame-Smith. “She pretty much told me, ‘This is what I’ll need.’ The day she walked in to turn in her application, she brought all her documentation with her. She had talked with the disability office before.”

For students from certain cultures, it may be necessary to encourage self-advocacy skills, especially if students arrive in the U.S. unfamiliar with their rights or lacking confidence to voice their needs and concerns.  “That was the bulk of our work,” says Worrall from Pima Community College. “Every time our Japanese student with a cognitive disability struggled in a math class, he would be in our office meeting with an academic advisor. Part of our message was, ‘You really need to advocate for yourself and share this with the professor.’”

“We haven’t had a student with a disability come in and not demonstrate competence and capability at a college level. We had one Iranian student with cognitive and ambulatory challenges who enrolled in our English language program first, and he moved on at the same rate as all of the other students,” says Pitts from the Intercultural Center at Johnson County Community College in Kansas. “He needed simple things that we would take for granted such as setting up his class schedule. His disabilities are quite profound so even though the campus is quite accessible there are certain classroom needs he has. For example, we needed to prearrange readers because of slower timing issues with his cognitive impairment.” She notes that the small classes in that language program provided more opportunity for individualized support, and the student also had local family and financial support that proved invaluable.

Mobility and Hearing Disabilities

“If I think about the international students with visible disabilities, they didn’t mingle with other students with similar disabilities, although they did get involved in things like disability awareness week to share about their experiences as a wheelchair user,” says Worrall from Pima Community College in Arizona. Although Marialaura Izarra, a wheelchair user from Venezuela studying at Santa Fe Community College in Florida, hasn't gotten involved with disability organizations or others with disabilities in the United States, it doesn't mean she hasn't benefited from her international study experience. "I’m happier and more content with being here and being able to do so many things that I wasn’t able to do back home. I’m more active and more willing to go out knowing that I can actually go when I want to, where I want to, and how I want to," she says. "I came to study here in United States because I knew that here I would be able to achieve my goal of studying, graduating and getting my degree, and the fact that I am [disabled] does not stop me."

Deaf students, on the other hand, tend to be very socially involved in the deaf community when they arrive in the United States. “Our Deaf students are a very different group from all our other disability categories. That’s mainly because deafness is also its own culture. Those students, even though they are not from the United States, have embraced that concept of their disability. Since we have a large American deaf population at our college, they plug into that quickly,” says Pitts, whose Kansas community college receives Gallaudet University students through a mainstreaming program, and currently has two deaf transfer students from Ethiopia.

This deaf community connection can provide students with an opportunity to informally learn about popular communication technologies, such as e-texting and video relay, that are often new to international students, says Kreidler, Director of Interpreting Services at a community college in Virginia. In contrast, students with mobility disabilities who need adaptive keyboards or programs are more likely to learn about these devices from the disability services office or independent living and assistive technology centers in their community.

"I really like the technologies. I think we should use the videophones, the instant messaging and the email pagers everywhere. It’s all very good for the deaf individuals to communicate. I can talk to a person without using an interpreter – I can type notes back and forth and it’s just like I was writing. It’s nice to be able to chat with anyone rather than them being embarrassed about not knowing sign language or me being embarrassed about not being able to speak with them," says Niyongabo from Burundi, who found the various technologies easy to learn from deaf roommates and friends at Ohlone College. 

While their national sign languages are different, Deaf students from foreign countries, like Niyongabo, often learn American Sign Language (ASL) before coming to the United States or quickly become proficient upon arrival through immersion in the deaf community or host families. “It opens a lot of doors for those who don’t speak English in that they can use ASL,” says Duss, who is at Austin Community College.

However, students from some countries, including many in Africa, tend to have limited exposure to working with sign language interpreters, so that involves a learning curve, Kreidler says. "The first time was hard to trust the sign interpreters because I was so used to depending on oral skills so that I was looking at the teacher and not looking at the interpreter. I found it challenging to pay attention to the interpreter to find out what exactly was going on. Later on I got used to it, but at first it was pretty complex," says Niyongabo, who grew up orally deaf in Burundi and learned ASL from a dictionary before enrolling in California's Ohlone College where he utilized ASL interpreters and captioners in the classroom. "It was really good for me [to have sign interpreters and captioners], and less stressful compared to my country where I was mainstreamed and didn’t have an interpreter. [In Burundi] I relied completely on what I saw with my eyes orally, and had to memorize everything and take notes myself."

Kreidler also has seen cases where the student’s ASL skills are lacking, thus complicating the sign language interpreter’s role in English as a Second Language classrooms where they have to use manually coded signs that are different from ASL. “Sometimes interpreters have to grasp at gestures, pointing, or different ways to get the information across. It is one of those things that keeps us on our toes and something we are constantly talking about amongst our staff to share ideas and the different challenges that arise we haven’t experienced before. It’s a challenge that I enjoy; I’m fortunate to have such a wonderful, experienced, dedicated staff and the students rely on them,” Kreidler says.

Kreidler’s experience and lessons learned in Virginia may be helpful for others in similar situations, such as St. Louis Community College, which will receive Central American deaf students with rudimentary ASL skills for the first time in 2007. These students will study in the United States for two years through Georgetown University’s Cooperative Association of States for Scholarships, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

Students with mobility disabilities also have secured scholarships to come to U.S. community colleges to study and take English language courses. A Mexican student with cerebral palsy received in-state tuition through a partnership with his home college to attend Pima Community College in Arizona. “His goal was to earn a degree in the United States. The scholarship committee thought he wouldn’t want more than a year in English, but he did. He is still here earning a business degree,” says Worrall. “The most amazing thing is when students are able to be successful in their life goals. When I see that, I’m happy.” 

Although many Deaf students require ASL interpreters in the classroom, others may prefer oral methods of communication, such as lip reading.  These students arrive in the United States used to lip reading in mainstreamed environments like on community college campuses, though the words may look different when spoken with American accents. “A hearing impaired woman from Taiwan never wanted to learn sign language, and we really tried to work with her on that in the last year wondering why she didn’t want to learn it. She was a total lip reader. I don’t know how she did it in another language – she’s remarkable,” says Worrall, adding that the student’s speech was difficult to understand. “Your counseling is different in that you have to really be willing to spend the extra time. A lot of times she would call in and we’d use the relay service to communicate with each other and that was new skills for me to learn. We emailed a lot, too.”

Adame-Smith from Seminole Community College in Orlando, Florida, agrees that “it was difficult at times to communicate” with a hard of hearing student from Brazil who lip reads. “The student tells people right away when he meets them that it is a barrier, so that you aren’t trying to guess if it’s because he doesn’t understand what you’re saying in English or because he’s not hearing you,” she says. “He’s doing better with English, but we have an international advisor that speaks his language, so she usually works with him the most. He feels really comfortable coming to her.”

“Sometimes interpreters have to grasp at gestures, pointing, or different ways to get the information across. It is one of those things that keeps us on our toes and something we are constantly talking about amongst our staff to share ideas and the different challenges that arise we haven’t experienced before. It’s a challenge that I enjoy.” -- Mark Kreidler, Director of Sign Language Interpreting, Northern Virginia Community College.

While success stories will vary as much with non-disabled as disabled international students, many ESL students have gone on to transfer to other institutions or continued on to take classes toward a degree. Pitts, from Johnson County Community College in Kansas, sees how international students have benefited from the opportunity to attend two-year colleges in the United States. She currently advises an Iranian student with cognitive and ambulatory disabilities, who is now a business major. “His speech is quite broken so it takes a while to speak with him but he’s intelligent. He’s moved up through the English language program and he’s successful enough that he speaks, understands and writes English fluently,” she says. “I think international students with disabilities see that they can aspire to things that they thought weren’t possible in their home countries. There’s no doubt in my mind that he will graduate and he’ll go on to his given profession. If he returns to Iran, he’ll have a degree in his hand that hopefully will give him an opportunity to go to work.”

Conclusion

International students contribute immeasurably to the diversity of a community college campus, and those with disabilities add even more. Welcoming these students on to campuses may mean some additional time on behalf of international student or disabled service advisors, but one cannot discount the rewards in learning more about their cultural perspectives and the benefits these students gain in accessing education and services that may have been unavailable to them in their home countries. From new awareness and/or acceptance of their disabilities to the contributions they will make upon returning home, the benefits to international students with disabilities overshadow the documentation, health insurance and communication hurdles they may have encountered while enrolled.

When Laetitia Rieck, a student with a non-apparent spinal neck injury from the Netherlands, graduated with high academic distinction in May 2007 from Arizona Western College, her father attended the ceremony proudly. "I’m grateful for the services the college offered me so that I could succeed in everything," says Rieck, who tells how doctors had discouraged her initially from going to college. "Of course, a large part is believing in myself, but also being able to get so much assistance from the disability office."

Yelena Semyonova, a Russian international student who has a prosthetic leg, reflects back after returning home following graduation. “I have tried to share my knowledge and experience about the lives of disabled people in America with people in my country, but I soon became aware that their minds were not ready for this. However, I do think that if I were not alone – if there were other people with similar experiences abroad – we could influence the situation and make some positive changes happen,” says Semyonova, who participated on the Youth for Understanding program to study at Iowa Lakes Community College.  “I want to encourage other students from Russia and countries like Russia to take part in exchange programs, and not be afraid of new experiences, because it is one of the best ways to develop a strong personality and achieve a better perspective of themselves. For me, being in the United States was an important experience, and I am sure it will contribute greatly to my future career as a teacher or a translator.”