This paper is going to cover several facets within the issue of immigration. There are multiple upsides as well as multiple downsides within the wide ranged topic. It is important to leave preconceived notions behind and pursue the most deferential approach to the matter at question. To narrow down the scope of immigration, we will break it down to a sociological approach. There is a term that many sociologists refer to when describing immigrants in a America. The word is “assimilation” will be the focus of this blog. But first, we must understand what this concept means with regards to immigrants and our culturally complexed nation. According to www.Asian-nation.org, and we will coincide this to Hispanic people, not so much as to treat it the same way, but to gain a better understanding, states that there are two structures which define assimilation. We will take them one by one. The first structure is “behavioral assimilation” and the second is a “socioeconomic assimilation.” Furthermore, it is important to distinguish the two apart but consider that they may also play hand in hand.
The first notion of behavioral assimilation relates to when a minority group adapts to the culture they have been exposed to. In other words they mesh to blend into the “host” society. While maintaining their own ethnic identities, often times minorities will adjust to mainstream American values. Anecdotally, I can say that I am an American with Hispanic descent, and I watch American television, I play American sports such as football and I chose to celebrate July 4th. Needless to say, I still appreciate my personal ethnic background and have respect for my culture. This is still a fairly new topic that is being studied since migration to the U.S. has grown substantially within the recent years. Cecilia Menjívar explains that, “what is relevant here is not only the change that multifaceted immigrant families bring to U.S. general patterns, but how immigrant families can change the face of assimilation.” (Menjívar )
The second notion of socioeconomic assimilation coincides with the structure of life. Moreover, the place is society in which the minority has worked their way in to. The types of jobs, standards of living and political affiliation are included within the facet. This idea of assimilation is what the Founding Fathers of this country had in mind. To make the idea a bit more clear, individuals such as Madison and Jefferson contemplated the formation of a republic where there would be several groups of interest that would allow for tolerance and accommodation. The concept can be structured as follows: if you have one leader, despotism exists, if you have two leaders, you have war, if you have 100 leaders, you have peace. To wrap up this idea, the fact that we are constantly exposed to an array of different people in a society, leads us into the right direction. That is to say that socioeconomic assimilation give minority groups knowledge that they have the ability to perform as well as the average Anglo-American.
The two facets of assimilation are grounds to believe that the nation is changing socially. We have more tolerance for different ethnic groups that we may not have had tolerance for in the passed. African American culture has had a dark past within America, but through social change, they have altered the face of assimilation to something that may have been frowned upon during the civil war era of the 1860s. There is no doubt that more social change is coming for immigrants that include less segregation and less discrimination. In sum, these trends with assimilation are going to create a sense of accommodation because people like me are American and I have chosen to adopt American values.
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