Acculturation is a process that a person goes through when exposed to a culture with characteristics different from his own, in which he appropriates it and dispenses with the one he was originally part of. Often this is taken as involuntary behavior, a product of mixing with the new culture; although, it should be noted, in some cases it occurs due to the action of an oppressive entity, that is, the individual is forced to shed their customs and adopt others. This process, according to some anthropologists, can lead to others, such as transculturation or neoculturation, which takes place when an entire people is subjected to the elements of the dominant culture.
The word is made up of various Latin roots and is made up of a series of lexical components that manage to give the meaning it has, such as the prefix ad- (towards), -culture (which in its original concept was cultivation) and the suffix –Tion or action and effect. One of the most cited examples of acculturation was the one that the natives went through, in the face of the invasion of the most important European powers; in the Latin American zone, they were forced to practice the Catholic religion, in addition to being forced to wear the typical clothes of the dominant culture; This fact, hundreds of years later, is still present in Latin society, where there are still important Western customs.
Transculturation, on the other hand, is a process that is sometimes called painful, since there is a “dominant” culture that imposes itself on another, causing the latter to gradually lose its original properties. This, however, does not happen on some occasions; as is the case of the children of immigrants, who live with the culture of their parents and that of the country where they reside.
