Uprooting is called the process and the result of uprooting: extracting a plant from the root; expel or remove someone from their place of origin; annul or abolish a custom. The notion is usually used with respect to what he feels who must emigrate from his land.
For example: “The writer was awarded for his novel about uprooting”, “In this country I have been able to progress economically, but I have always suffered from uprooting”, “Getting together with my compatriots helps me combat uprooting”.
When a person moves away from their family, social and cultural roots, they begin to experience estrangement that affects their identity. That loss is uprooting, which has consequences for socialization and the psychology of the individual.
Generally, uprooting occurs when the subject is forced to leave their home. Poverty, a natural disaster, political persecution, a war or a genocide are reasons that can force someone to emigrate. When settling in the new place, the person is likely to yearn for their land and experience uprooting as they find themselves immersed in new social practices.
Anguish, anxiety, fear, frustration and loneliness are some of the sensations linked to being uprooted, which can lead to depression, alcoholism and other disorders. Sometimes, uprooting is also linked to the discrimination that immigrants often suffer.
Today, technology can help minimize uprooting by facilitating communications. On the other hand, it is common for members of a community abroad to meet in clubs and civil associations to keep their customs alive and not suffer from uprooting.
Of course, uprooting can also be understood in a much deeper way and far from the material, as that feeling of having lost something very important, a part of our being, and not simply the physical closeness with our loved ones or the possibility of maintain our cultural customs. One of the meanings provided by the RAE dictionary for the verb to uproot says that it means “the cutting of affective ties with the people who were part of our upbringing.”
In other words, uprooting does not involve a trip to a foreign country, or it can start long before you let go of your own. When an individual discovers that his parents are not fair people, or that they have not raised him with love but have subjected him to neglect, among other evils, he probably feels that someone suddenly uproots him, that his affective ties are cut and that ceases to belong to the known world, to be suspended in uncertainty.
While we can try to overcome the merely material uprooting, which occurs due to the impossibility of consuming our favorite dishes abroad, by buying the products in imported stores, there is no way to repair the emotional one, especially if it arises for reasons similar to those exposed. in the previous paragraph.
With regard to customs and tastes, which often include sports activities, the uprooting is not so heavy, since it is always possible to find people wanting to learn new things to adapt to foreigners, or to others who come from the same country and want to keep their roots alive. But there are also those who do not want to look back, and that is why they accept uprooting and make it a lifestyle, so to speak.
Making an analogy with botany, sometimes it is convenient for a plant to remove it from a diseased or poorly nutritious soil and take it to one more conducive to its development. At first she may have a hard time adjusting, but in time she may grow up more beautiful and radiant than she ever could have been in her homeland.
