According to Milton Gordon (2015):
There are seven stages in which assimilation
Throughout human history there have been many theories developed in the attempt at understanding and explaining human behavior, no one theory is without flaws but each one provides a view on human interaction and society all together. The idea that society's parts work together to maintain a status and meet social needs is called functionalism, functionalism is about cooperation and interdependence. In sharp contrast to functionalism, conflict theory states that individuals are out to promote their own self-interest, and that conflict, not cooperation is what motivates society. Symbolic functionalism analyzes the way members of society communicate and the subjectivity of everything from religion to language. Each theory has its own problems,…
To begin, over the course of time, society has grown to cooperate as assimilation is inevitable. In his essay “Blaxicans,” Richard Rodriguez asserts that assimilation happens spontaneously (17). For instance, throughout the piece, Rodriguez uses anecdotes to exemplify his personal encounters of assimilation such as his experience in Merif, Calif, in which he talks to the Laotian kids about why they do not like the Mexican kids. They claim about how the Mexicans do this and the Mexicans do not do that, when Rodriguez suddenly realizes that they were speaking English with a Spanish accent (18).This portrays that despite how the two races found conflict with each other, they still impacted the other in some way, thus resulting in the incident…
The reading assigned is centered around the discussion of social identities given to the reader by Gwyn Kirk and Margo Okazawa-Rey. In this article the discussion of social identities are geared toward the identities we give ourselves and the identities society gives us. Kirk and Okazawa-Rey give plenty examples of how the social groups we tend to place ourselves might not be the same group society places us in. One example used was immigration in the United States. In many places all over the world most people identify with where they are from as their main “identity.”…
She gives three causes, or explanations, on why immigrants are reluctant to assimilate, forgetting old traits and adopting new ones. First, is the strong feeling of pride Hispanics have for their country and values. Second, is the close proximity of Hispanics to their native country. Third, is the seeming lack of support from many Hispanics Americans to help new immigrants assimilate. Many Hispanics see isolation as a way to hold on their cultural…
There may be a point in time in which an individual may be faced with the question: “what makes up one’s identify?” Some people may be able to answer this question, while others may not. The novels We The Animals, by Justin Torres, and 187 Reasons Mexicanos Can't Cross the Border, by Juan Felipe Herrera address this question for the individuals who do not know what makes them who they are. There is a linking factor to both novels that allows for the reader to relate to them; this factor is identity. There are some internal and external hardships that both authors/narrators face.…
Three common themes, like assimilation, power, and identity are seen in Three common themes, like assimilation, power, and identity are seen in many books. Some common books are Catcher in the Rye and Things Fall Apart. Some of the main ways they show identity is how people see them or how they try to present themselves. Then they show power by power of religion, education, and acceptance.. Lastly, assimilation is illustrated by them wanting to be like everybody else and by what they believe in.…
Assimilation and Retroculturation When people talking about assimilation, they all think about the culture issue and identity problem. Identities and culture are easily to be changed and replaced. However, as the society developed, more immigrants are not only satisfy on the other culture assimilation but also on have interest on the retroculturation. Because of economics and social factors, people may lose their identities like name changing.…
In ways, immigrants experience situations that many individuals can identify with. As an example, they experience the desire to “fit in” and often assimilate because of this. Although their troubles may be far more intense, we are still able to improve our situations by examining how they coped with their struggled. For instance, most immigrants struggle to learn the language when they arrive in Canada.…
How someone identifies is a complicated matter to dissect. There are an innumerable amount of factors that play into identity, both internally and externally to an individual. The fact that culture is an integral part only adds more complexity, as many cultures are becoming increasingly integrated and globalized with other unique groups. Generally speaking, identity is usually determined, often simultaneously, on three different levels: the national level, in one’s community, and at the personal level of self.…
Assimilation means multiple groups become mixed by obtaining each other’s social and psychological characteristics, such as how waves of immigrants have been assimilated into the American culture. Richard Rodriguez, the writer of “Blaxican’s and Other Reinvented Americans” is telling the readers about mixing race in America and belongings of immigration. Cultural assimilation in Rodriguez’s view is the processes by groups of cultures that comes from different countries and speak different languages. Rodriguez points out that assimilation happened naturally over time.…
In the countries of immigrants like the united States, people from different cultural backgrounds bring their own cultures and traditions to live and work together and in the normal situation, one kind of culture will hold a dominant position. It is good for the people who have the dominant cultural background. However, that makes people from other cultural backgrounds confuse, especially for second or third generations. For these people, cultural assimilation and retroculturation are two necessary processes. They will influence non-dominant culture of people and their next generations.…
An example of assimilation that Arellano writes in his book is when his father comes to the U.S. is stated “My father first stayed in the United States at the house of his tia Maria in East Los Angeles, along with about fifteen other men from Jomuquillo” (Arellano 77). This is a classic and stereotypical example of Mexicans both struggling to find places to stay and the…
This article, Citizenship, Language, and Superdiversity: Towards Complexity written by Jan Blommaert, discusses the key ideas of the different forms of language, citizenship, and diversity that occur in today’s society. Blommaert discusses how the language we use is reliant on the environment that we are in, in that moment, as well as the people we are interacting with. Blommaert also talks about how, in this time when immigration is at a high, citizenship is becoming harder to define due to various cultures integrating. Meaning that we no longer just have dominant cultures, we also have subcultures. These changes in diversity led to something known as “superdiversity”, which not only refers to polycentric social environments, but also polycentric social systems.…
With evidence of numerous case studies of various racial groups with a range of backgrounds, resources, and experiences, Portes and Zhou find that “these factors influence decisively the outlook of second-generation youth” (33). By using such a powerful word as decisively, Portes and Zhou suggest that this is the main influential factor of a second generation immigrants assimilation. Waters places less priority on this factor, reasoning that debates in the news are like Portes and Zhou’s argument, which “often focus on problems… and often miss important topics” (236). While the problems focused on are prevalent in today’s society, arguments like this are narrowed into a corner, focusing on one specific attribute of a second generation immigrant’s process of assimilation. By failing to step back and look at the topic from a varying perspective that recent sociological studies provide, debates like Portes and Zhou’s will continue with a dated perspective that ignores other, more recently significant…
As an intercultural person the most appealing metaphor for the assimilation process into American culture is the salad bowl. The salad bowl allows the immigrants to come to American to obtain a better life, but at the same time maintain their own identity while learning to exist in the new culture (Jandt, 2010, pp. 334). The salad bowl metaphor shows that immigrants that come to America have a chance to keep their own identity and do not have to take on the identity that is prevalent in America, they just have to learn to adapt to a different culture than what they were used to. Many people immigrate to America to be able to provide for their families, some people think they should change their values and beliefs to adapt to the American…