Chapter 2: Assimilation and Pluralism

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Chapter 2Assimilation and Pluralism
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Defining Terms

• Assimilation
• Pluralism

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Immigration Periods or Waves

• Slave Trade 1607-1830. About 50K Africans here
  at time of American Revolution. Why this period
  is not viewed as an immigration wave.
• First Wave 1820 1880 (10 million)
• - England
• - Scotland
• - Germany
• - Norway
• - Sweden
• - Ireland

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Immigration Periods or Waves

• Second Wave 1881 1930 (27 million)
• - Italy
• - Austria
• - Hungary
• - Poland
• - Russia
• - China
• - Japan

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Immigration Periods or Waves

• Third Wave 1930 -1965
• - mostly an internal migration
• rural to urban
• south to north

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Immigration Periods or Waves

• Fourth Wave 1965 present (18 million )
• - South and Central America
• - Mexico
• - Asia

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White Americans

• First and Second Wave Immigration
• - 1820 to 1930s
• As your text book notes
• a great deal of energy has been devoted to
  documenting, describing, and understanding the
  experiences of these immigrants and their
  descendants.

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Chapter 2 Goals

• Learn the theories and concepts that grew from
  studying the first two waves of immigration.
• Examine other possible group goals.
• Examine more contemporary theories about
  immigration based on post 1965 immigration
  experiences.

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Types of Assimilation

• Melting Pot all groups come together and more
  or less contribute equally to creating a common
  culture and national identity.

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Types of Assimilation

• Anglo-Conformity (Jeffersons model)
• Goal was for immigrants to mirror British
  cultural and institutional
• patterns.

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Pluralism

• Salad BowlImmigrants retain unique aspects of
  their original culture which remain identifiable
  in American society. Produces the hyphenated
  American.
• Those who advocate this view are
• concerned with maintaining
• individual / group freedom,
• identity.

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Goal 1 Theories and Concepts on Assimilation
based upon studies of 1st / 2nd Wave Immigration
Periods

• Robert Park (1864-1944) sociologist
• Race Relations Cycle
• 1. Contact
• 2. Competition
• 3. Accommodation
• 4. Assimilation
• Problems with Parks Theory

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Goal 1 Theories and Concepts on Assimilation
based upon studies of 1st / 2nd Wave Immigration
Periods continued

• Milton Gordon sociologistAssimilation in
  American Life (1964)
• Differentiated between- Culture
• - Social Structure primary and secondary
• Gordons seven stage process of assimilation
  we will focus only on the first 3.

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Goal 1 Theories and Concepts on Assimilation
based upon studies of 1st / 2nd Wave Immigration
Periods continued
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Human Capital Theory

• Claim the level of success achieved by any
  immigrant group is a direct result of the
  following things
• - Education and skills
• - Ethnic group cultural values
• Individual characteristics

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Human Capital Theory

• Assumes success is equally available to all
• and larger society is neutral toward any given
  immigrant group
• Theory is incomplete

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Assimilation Patterns Importance of Generations

• First Generation stay within their ethnic
  group, learn some English.
• Second Generation children of the first.
  Educated in public schools where they become
  socialized in dominant Anglo-culture.
• Third Generation grandchildren of the first.
  Raised in non-ethnic neighborhoods. Assimilated
  completely into larger culture. May view
  themselves as ethnic but only optionally.

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Symbolic or Optional Ethnicity vs. Racial
Ethnicity
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Symbolic vs. Racial Ethnic Identity

• Symbolic Ethnic Identity
• is a choice
• involves leisure activities and family
  traditions
• without real social cost to individuals
• does not influence lives (unless individuals
  want it to)

• Racial Ethnic Identitysocially
  imposed/enforcedhigh social cost to individuals
  and groupsrequires strategies for self
  preservationmay lead to oppositional identities
  that reject anything dominant culture embraces

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Homework

• Read the following article Best of Friends,
  Worlds Apart at
• http//www.nytimes.com/library/national/race/0605
  00ojito-cuba.html
• A link to the article is also on the schedule.
• Complete the reading guide handout, and bring it
  with a printed copy of the reading to class on
  Friday.