Any tips for adjusting incoming fiance to American life?

[Hotter Otter 1,211]

As a beneficiary...

Take her around your neighborhood and area; the sooner it becomes familiar to her the sooner it will feel like home.

Be her rock; if she finds it difficult to adjust or feels homesick then support her, its tough being an expat at first.

Spend time with your friends and family so she gets to know them and feel welcome.

I guess the most important advice is that there will probably be ups and downs at first and the more support you give her on the bad days the more it will help her to adjust quickly and be happier.

Good luck to you both; its a great sign that you are already thinking of how to make it easier for her

[Janelle2002 3,865]

Try to talk to her about things she will not be used too before or after arrival. Everyone seems to forget this.

The different variations of English spoken in the U.S.

Taco Bell isn't real Mexican food. lol

How to ride the subway.

This is a fun one. Teach her idioms or words that sound alike but have different meanings. This is laughable between my husband and I. Like "a s s" and "as" or "be" and "bee."

We like to use cell phones and credit/debit cards to pay for things instead of cash.

Reality TV isn't reality.

[TBoneTX 45,309]

If she drives now, have her renew her Colombian driver's license for the longest term possible. This might enable her to drive here right away, or sooner than otherwise.

Have her collect multiple original copies of every important paper in her life: birth certificate, school records, medical/dental records, vaccination records, divorce certificate if applicable, birth certificates of children if applicable, and anything else that you & she can think of. Get them apostilled or stamped by the issuing parties. She might not need every document, or need any one of them often, but she'll be doggoned glad that she has them if she ever needs them. Get them now.

Ah -- Janelle has reminded me of an important one. Tell your fiancee to enunciate "sheet" and "beach" very carefully, every time. True story: once when I came home, this dialogue ensued:

Mrs. T-B.: I bought you cheap.
T-B.: What did you say?
Mrs. T-B.: I bought you cheap!
T-B.: You bought me cheap? What the dickens does THAT mean? I'm not that cheap. And don't let Immigration hear you say that.
Mrs. T-B. [frustrated]: Cheap, CHEAP! I bought you CHEAP!

Further investigation revealed that she had gone to the store and bought me a bag of potato cheaps.

[TBoneTX 45,309]

Another item, rather sobering and sensitive.

Prepare her for the remote chance that someone, at some time, might call her a "damned illegal Mexican" or similar. Many in the general public have no concept of legal immigration and have strongly held feelings about illegal immigration, and these feelings might be directed toward her, because she's a native Spanish-speaker with an accent.

Among "Spanish people" (the global term that Mrs. T-B. uses), the distinction between Colombian, Mexican, Honduran, Chilean, etc. is usually quite obvious. However, to some Americans, especially those who are ignorant of geography, everyone is a Mexican, "and probably illegal," because that's all that's ever in the news.

Mrs. T-B. never had this problem with Americans, although it was reversed in a funny way. On her first visit to the local Mexican supermarket, I had her ask the staff if they could identify her origin by identifying her dialect. The guesses were "Colombian," "Honduran," and "not Mexican." When she revealed it as Ecuadorian, one fellow actually exclaimed, "Gee! I thought all Ecuadorians were ugly!" All that they had ever seen of Ecuador were photos of those stubby natives (I can't remember their ethnic name -- Chechuas? I'm probably butchering it) who wear the colorful hats. Stereotypes are universal, it seems.

The point is that you should help to prepare her to handle any mindless insults.

[kthruelsen 2]

To quote Siskel & Ebert, two thumbs way up to all your suggestions!

Gym memberships, cell phone, library cards, community college classes and finding fellow latinos are all great starting points.

It's going to be a bumpy ride I have no doubt, but with the information I've garnered from all of your insights it should be that much smoother.

Many thanks again,

~Kevin

[tolitzpogi 37]

My wife from the Philippines came here in November last year, and she was immediately homesick during her first week. In the PI she lived with her two girls, her parents, and her brother and two sisters all in the same house, so it was always fun and noisy and there was always someone to talk to. It was a stark contrast to my apartment in Los Angeles, where she was all alone when I go to work, and only had the internet and Netflix and streaming Korean telenovelas to occupy her time. Because of the time difference, it was a bit difficult for her to chat or call her kids and her parents/siblings (9am Friday in California is 1am Saturday in the Philippines).

What I did was to always, always, always talk to her wherever I am, at home or at work (via text messages). Netflix was not enough, and she missed her local programs, so I subscribed to TFC (The Filipino Channel), which I never thought of getting in the 20 years I have been in the USA. And I tried my best not to be jealous or needy when she spends hours on the phone or on Skype talking with her kids and her family. And whenever we go out (which was every weekend), I showed her points of interest and how to get there - via bus, train or the freeways to take when she can finally drive - and these included malls, restaurants and department stores. I was lucky to have an apartment just across the street from Burger King, Albertson's, CVS, Trader Joe's and Coffee Bean, hehe.

I guess the bottomline is to prevent her from just sitting alone in the house for hours, doing nothing but staring at the TV or the computer. She will feel useless and alone if that happens. My wife experienced bouts of depression before we got married, and it was agonizing to see and there is not much you can do once it hits, so the trick is to avoid that from happening. As someone said, it's gonna be bumpy, there's no way to avoid it. The only thing you can do is allow her to have fun during the bumpy ride until she gets used to it. Once her two girls come here in a couple months (via K2), most of her homesickness will finally disappear and she can finally enjoy the American life as I promised her.

Good luck!

[jjbandero 39]

I came here for work and eventually met and married my USC husband, so my perspective is a little different from the K1 holders. However, things that I personally found helpful are:

• Get a phone right away
• Learn how to get to places on my own
• Volunteer - in addition to building a network, this also looks good on the resume
• Take community college courses - there are quite a lot available near where I lived, and they are not all designed for your to get some sort of accreditation/certification, I personally had some really fun golf/photography/drawing classes for adults
• Get all the paperwork out of the way - having that annoyance weighing on your mind is not good

Other ideas I really agree with is doing some sort of home decoration together to make it feel more like "our" home; learning something together so that it does not feel like one person is always the "expert"

Cheers

[jjbandero 39]

I wrote an article on this for my immigration blog; here's a direct link to it;

http://the-shipping-forecast.tumblr.com/post/94369269087/post-6-succeeding-in-closing-the-distance

Cool blog