Example Of Assimilation

America is still seen as a land of opportunities where prospective immigrants come in a quest of a higher standard of life. While some immigrants assume a fully American identity, others isolate themselves in their communities. Authors advise immigrants who want to be successful in the United States to assimilate into the American society while trying to keep their personal and cultural identity; however, it is important to find the balance between the two.Assimilation is a complicated process of adopting the foreign language and culture, familiarizing oneself with American laws and history that is not possible without communication. According to Yoshino, assimilation is a natural process that fluids interaction. As communication is the key …show more content…
Assimilation is a helpful process; however, it can sometimes make humans abandon their identity and culture. It is necessary for immigrants not to get too assimilated into a western country. M. Munoz says that “The corrosive effect of assimilation is the displacement of one culture over another, the inability to sustain more than one way of being”.“ He gives an example of Arjuna, a call-center employee in India, who became too westernized, that “His hobbies began to feel hollow. He lost touch with his family and made few friends.” He does not keep his own traditions and surrender his culture. Arjuna admits that his “life would be easier if he had hewn to the traditional Indian path.” “I spent my youth searching for the real me,” he says. “Sometimes I feel that now I`ve destroyed anything that is real in me, that I am floating somewhere in between.” Some immigrants know just their native language and follow only their cultural traditions while living in the USA. Even if keeping one`s traditions is salient, self-segregation is another extreme action that must be avoided . Sumaia Masoon says, " It`s not that too many Muslim immigrants are causing a safety hazard by coming to America- it`s that too many of us are coming and self-segregating." It is crucial but not always easy to find a happy medium between assimilation and preservation of one`s own culture . Immigrants should speak both languages : their native tongue and English. They should not be ashamed of neither of them. Munoz explains that many Hispanic children in US speak English at school and Spanish at home. He says, “But instead of recognizing the need for fluency in both languages, we turned it into a peculiar kind of battle. English was for public display. Spanish was for privacy- and privacy quickly turned to shame.” Alvarez says,”After all, being Latina/o is about being a hybrid, a