Race and ethnicity  (Page 7/22)

Assimilation

Is America a melting pot or a lumpy stew/tossed salad? America is a nation of immigrants. With the exception of Native Americans, we all have immigrant ancestors or are ourselves immigrants. Assimilation is the process by which a racial or ethnic minority loses its distinctive identity and lifeways and conforms to the cultural patterns of the dominant group. Cultural assimilation is assimilation of values, behaviors, beliefs, language, clothing styles, religious practices, and foods while structural assimilation is about social interaction. Primary structural assimilation occurs when different racial/ethnic groups belong to the same clubs, live in the same neighborhoods, form friendships, and intermarry. Secondary structural assimilation concerns parity in access to and accumulation of the goods of society, (wealth, power, and status), which is measured by SES and political power—it is becoming middle class or above. The traditional American assimilation pattern is that white ethnics, Asians, Cubans, and non-Mexican Hispanics, by the third generation (third generation Americans are those people whose grandparents were foreign-born), have assimilated both culturally and structurally. However, Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, and African Americans do not follow this traditional pattern which differs due to propinquity, coercion, and lack of socioeconomic opportunity. Marger Martin. Race and Ethnic Relations: American and Global Perspectives: Fourth Edition. Wadsworth: Belmont CA: 1996.

Push and pull factors in emmigration/immigration

Emmigration is the movement of people from one country to another while immigration is the movement of people into a country other than their land of birth. Emmigration and immigration are ubiquitous among human beings: we have been moving ever since we were born in Africa tens of thousands of years ago. There are various reasons why people move from one country to another and we call those motivating forces push and pull factors. The table, below, shows some of the push and pull factors for sending and receiving countries.

Immigration

One’s position in the stratification hierarchy, as stated previously, often depends on one’s master status—a social position which may be influenced by one’s ancestry. The United States is a land of immigrants. Even the American Indians are not truly indigenous to this continent but came as hunters in search of prey across the Bering Strait some 17,000 or more years ago. However, embedded in America’s historic past, immigration and the role of immigrants have played a significant part in determining our national character. Since our earliest history, the North American continent has consisted of indigenous Indians, white Northwestern Europeans, African peoples, and Jews. This continent had its earliest historical beginnings in the journeys of conquest of Europeans. It is to them that the United States owes some of its heritage as a nation; however, the vast influx of an extraordinarily broad array of people from across the globe has given America a uniqueness in the world. America is the most racially, ethnically, and religiously diverse nation on Planet Earth. In one of the largest and busiest harbors in the world stands the gift of a foreign nation holding aloft a torch and cradling a book in which is written the Bill of Rights. At the base of the Statue of Liberty is a plaque on which is written a poem by Emma Lazarus: