One of the scholarly articles that was more thought provoking to me was Portes and Zhou work, titled The New Second Generation: Segmented Assimilation and Its Variants. While I have seen and experience this segmented assimilation, this is the first time I have read an article that articulates the situation so clearly. I have never thought of myself as a second-generation immigrant because I wasn’t born in the United States. However, according to the article, I am considered a second-generation immigrant because, even though I was born in Ecuador, I have lived in the United States most of my life…this was very surprising to me. Hence, throughout the paper when I refer to second-generation immigrants, I will mean immigrants who are foreign-born
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This is due to the hybridity of their cultural identities. As the authors mentioned, “They [the students] had strong bicultural ties between Mexico and the United states” (this statement could also apply to almost any other cultural background). From this quote, I can derive that this back and forth between the two cultures creates a hybrid identity that does not allow the person to fully assimilate. Perhaps, in such situation the key issue is not the type of assimilation the person goes through (downward or mainstream), but rather the limbo state in which he or she finds himself/herself and how this affects the assimilation process. Although there are various people who experience this hybrid identity, it must be said that this limbo state is more palpable when these second-generation immigrants have a close connection with their native cultures, either through strong family influence and/or the number of years they lived in their native country. I came to the United States at the age of 10 and I am very connected to my Ecuadorian roots, but living in the U.S. has also affected the person I am today. Thus, I find myself in a situation where non-immigrant Ecuadorians can tell I am not “authentically” Ecuadorian, and I am also not an American, although I love to celebrate the 4th of July and Thanksgiving. I still have a hard time trying to articulate my own identity. Perhaps being part of a continuous assimilation process signifies a long-lasting cultural state of
This is due to the hybridity of their cultural identities. As the authors mentioned, “They [the students] had strong bicultural ties between Mexico and the United states” (this statement could also apply to almost any other cultural background). From this quote, I can derive that this back and forth between the two cultures creates a hybrid identity that does not allow the person to fully assimilate. Perhaps, in such situation the key issue is not the type of assimilation the person goes through (downward or mainstream), but rather the limbo state in which he or she finds himself/herself and how this affects the assimilation process. Although there are various people who experience this hybrid identity, it must be said that this limbo state is more palpable when these second-generation immigrants have a close connection with their native cultures, either through strong family influence and/or the number of years they lived in their native country. I came to the United States at the age of 10 and I am very connected to my Ecuadorian roots, but living in the U.S. has also affected the person I am today. Thus, I find myself in a situation where non-immigrant Ecuadorians can tell I am not “authentically” Ecuadorian, and I am also not an American, although I love to celebrate the 4th of July and Thanksgiving. I still have a hard time trying to articulate my own identity. Perhaps being part of a continuous assimilation process signifies a long-lasting cultural state of