1. Questions What does it mean to be an American? What does assimilation mean? How do we know if assimilation is happening?

2. Jose, Can you See? Samuel Huntington The persistent inflow of Hispanic immigrants threatens to divide the US into two peoples, two cultures and two languages. Unlike past immigrant groups, Mexicans and other Latinos have not assimilated into mainstream US culture, forming instead their own political and linguistic enclaves—from LA to Miami—and rejecting the Ango Protestant values that built the American dream. The US ignores this challenge at its peril.

3. Assimilation “a process of interpenetration and fusion in which persons and groups acquire the memory, sentiments, and attitudes of other persons and groups and, by sharing their experience and history, are incorporated with them in a common historical life” –Robert Park and E.W. Burgess 1921 Chicago School of Sociology

4. Assimilation Controversial in many disciplines and venues. Two different meanings to word: –As coercion, policy. –As unintended consequence In the US our discussions about current assimilation often are comparing current immigration with past immigration.

5. Assimilation into What? Models of American Culture Anglo Conformity –A+B+C=A Melting Pot –A+B+C=D Cultural Pluralism –A+B+C=A+B+C

6. Assimilation as Policy Coercion: Ford Motor Company. –1914 Americanization program. –“Our one great aim is to impress these men that they are, or should be, Americans, and that former racial, national and linguistic differences are to be forgotten” –Sociology Department investigated homes for American habits. Graduation ceremony.

8. Assimilation as an Unintended Consequence As the cumulative by-product of choices made by individuals seeking to take advantage of opportunities to improve their social and material conditions. –Suburbanization –Attendance in college –Intermarriage

9. Assimilation Was an Open Question Groups such as Poles, Italians and Irish were once seen as unassimilable and racially distinct. Italians seen as non-white, racially inferior, intellectually deficient. By 1980, Italian was the most popular choice among Americans of mixed European origins.

10. Jacob Schurman, Columbia University, 1924 The public has awakened from the delusion created by the shibboleth of the “melting pot”. It is disquieted and disturbed by the spectacle of immense alien communities…more or less self contained speaking many foreign languages, containing an influential foreign-language press, with their own banks, markets and insurance companies and sometimes with

11. separate schools—unleavened lumps of many European nationalities, unchanged masses of foreigners intrenched in America, yet not of it, owing in many cases foreign allegiance, and, in general tied to foreign countries by their language, their sympathies, their culture, their interests, and their aspirations.

12. Assimilation Worked in the Past It took several generations, but Irish, Italian, Polish immigrants achieved parity in incomes, education with English and other earlier groups. Important role of wars.

15. Intermarriage Widespread By 1990 more than half of whites had spouses whose ethnic backgrounds did not overlap with their own at all. Only 20% had spouses with identical backgrounds.

16. End Point: Symbolic Ethnicity People enjoy ethnicity, but it has little impact on day to day life. Voluntary identifications Given the choice, people choose the most “ethnic” option they have. Don’t want to be “vanilla”.

17. Theoretical Debates on Second Generation Assimilation Straight Line Assimilation Segmented Assimilation Transnationalism

18. Measuring Assimilation: Dependent Variables Linguistic Socioeconomic Spatial Attitudinal Religious Civic Intermarriage Identification

19. Straight Line Assimilation Each generation represents on average a new stage of adjustment to the host society—a further step away from the ethnic group, and a step closer to complete assimilation. Sociologists measure time since immigration and generation.

20. Generation First: Foreign Born 1.5: Foreign Born but Raised in US (Immigrated before age 7) Second: One or both Parents Born Abroad Third: Grandparents born Abroad The Second Generation are 12% of the US population.

21. Income Inequality and Past Immigration Straight line assimilation describes a situation in which each generation does “better” than the generation before. For European immigrants this could happen just by entering society, and sons having the same level of education as their fathers. Income Inequality declined 1945-1973, and wages of those at the bottom rose most dramatically

22. Can the success of past assimilation be repeated? Will straight line assimilation apply to today’s immigrants? Did the successful incorporation of European immigrants rest on forced Americanization or unintended consequences of other activities? Can we assimilate immigrants in an era of rising income inequality?

23. Segmented Assimilation Theory Suggests assimilation of disadvantaged youth (poor, minority) will be to “values and norms of inner city” and its “outlooks and cultural ways” (Portes and Zhou 1993); this leads to oppositional culture and downward assimilation Rising income inequality, racial discrimination combine to create blocked mobility for the children of immigrants.

24. Segmented Assimilation Alejandro Portes and Min Zhou Three paths open to the second generation –Upward mobility into the mainstream. –Downward mobility into the underclass. –Upward mobility by maintaining ties to the immigrant community and economy.

25. Segmented Assimilation Outcomes depend on the skills the parents bring with them, the context of reception the group faces, and the strength of the immigrant community. Three possible trajectories: –Consonant acculturation –Dissonant acculturation –Selective acculturation

26. Consonant Acculturation Parents and children abandon old ways and language at the same rate and adopt American ways and English at the same time. Most common among middle class immigrants and their children. Outcome:Mostly upward assimilation, blocked at times by discrimination.

27. Dissonant Acculturation Children become Americanized more quickly than the parents. Upsets the authority of the parents. Increases the influence of peers. Outcome: Downward Assimilation

28. Selective Acculturation Ethnic community includes the children, supports the parents, cushions both generations move into American culture. Children have better retention of parents language, more ethnic friends, and do better in school. Outcome: Upward assimilation combined with biculturalism.

29. Mode of Incorporation Government policy: refugee, economic migrant or undocumented Societal: Race Communal: Immigrant community itself. Are there middle class and working class people? Are they organized and cohesive?

30. Evidence on Second Generation Assimilation De-couple Americanization and socioeconomic mobility. Americanization can be bad for you. Perceptions of discrimination rise over time Bilingual kids did best in school Social class has very strong effect

33. Transnationalism Introduced in 1970s by international relations scholars to refer to proliferation of nonstate institutions and governance regimes acting across state boundaries.

34. Transnationalism Anthropologists applied the term to migrants: –Process by which transmigrants, through their daily activities forge and sustain multi stranded social, economic, and political relations that link together their societies of origin and settlement, and through which they create transnational social fields that cross national borders. (Basch, Glick-Schiller and Szanton- Blanc)

35. Expansion of the Concept of Transnationalism Connections migrants maintain with home country. Social networks and social groups that result from those connections Impact of transnational ties on those left behind Cognitive and Imagined elements of transnational ties

36. Impact of Transnationalism Economic Remittances Social Remittances –Gender roles –Ideas about political behaviors Transformation of Religious Civic and Political Institutions in Both Sending and Receiving Countries

39. Language Assimilation Three generation model. First generation learns some English. Second generation is bilingual but prefers English. Third generation is monolingual in English. Historical exceptions--Germans, French Canadians, Cajuns. Coercion: schools, Americanization campaigns Individual Choice: role of employment, residential integration.

40. Language Assimilation Is English in danger? –Are immigrants and their children learning English? How does language change occur? Is bilingualism good or bad?

41. English Only Movement National movement. Pay dues and become a member. Goals: –Eliminate or reduce bilingual education –Abolish multilingual ballots –Prevent state or local money to translate road signs and govt documents or to pay for translators at public hospitals

42. American Opinion on Language

44. Scholarship on Language Acquistion Until the 1960’s the scholarly consensus was that learning two languages in childhood was harmful to speech and intellectual development. 1920’s: bilingualism caused retardation in immigrant children. These studies did not control for social class, they failed to distinguish between fluent bilinguals and limited bilinguals.

45. Peal and Lambert, 1962 Quebec sample of fluent bilingual 10 year olds matched by gender and family status. Bilinguals outperformed monolinguals on every cognitive test. Bilinguals had superior performance in concept formation and in tasks that required symbolic flexibility.

46. Causal Order Are fluent bilinguals smarter because of the ways in which knowing two languages promotes cognitive growth, flexibility? Or are smarter people more likely to become fluent bilinguals? The debate in education now is how to teach English. –Switch from Bilingual Education to English Language Learners.

47. Language Assmilation The debate about language does not pay attention to the empirical evidence. Language assimilation is massive, but hidden due to ongoing immigration. Coercive policies could backfire, among later generations English is triumphant with no policy or effort.

48. Language switching Generation patterns –First generation Dominant tongue used instrumentally, esp for work –Dominant tongue is language of work –Immigrants dependent on dominant language speakers Mother tongue used in other domains –First generation monolinguals or limited bilinguals

49. Language switching Second generation –Mother tongue heard/used at home Conversation with parents and other 1 st generation relatives –Early childhood: hearing and speaking –Later childhood/adolescence: hearing »Speaking in dominant tongue Dominant tongue used in all other domains Children are “passive bilinguals”

50. Language switching Third generation –Dominant tongue used at home and outside home Minor mother tongue persistence –Terms of affection, slang

51. MLA Language Map All languages other than English combined Percentage of persons speaking a language other than English, by county: 2000 Density of foreign- language speakers highest in the Southwest, especially along Rio Grande in Texas. Note pockets of foreign-language speaking in mountain states, great plains, south Florida

52. Percent not speaking any English rapidly drops, then levels off; percent switching to English only remains relatively low and stable; a substantial minority of long-time immigrants have switched entirely to English, but this may be a “cohort” effect, and later cohorts may not follow same pattern

53. While proportion of immigrants speaking no English is higher among Mexican than among other immigrants in LA region, drop is rapid; however, percent speaking English only or very well never exceeds 40 percent level

56. Asian Language Assimilation: Rapid Loss of Mother Tongue Among Filipinos, 4 out of 5 second generation children speak only English. Asian Indian. 50% speak only English. Koreans 2 of 5 speak only English at home. Japanese 2 of 3 speak only English. By the third generation over 90% speak only English

57. Latino Language Assimilation Third generation Cubans: 75% speak only English at home. Third and later generation Mexicans 60% speak only English at home. Third and later generation Dominicans 50%.

58. Language Assimilation Mexican Americans Among 25-44 year olds: –arriving 1985-1990 25% speak English well –arriving 1980-1985 40% speak English well –arriving before 1980 60% speak English well –US born: 97% speak English well –1990 Census Data

59. The Second Generation Prefers English Among young adults in Miami and San Diego: –93% of Mexicans prefer English –99% of Filipinos prefer English –96% of Cambodians prefer English –Source: Ruben Rumbaut, Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study

60. Disjuncture Between Scholarship and Public Debate Scholars find that bilingualism is good for cognitive development. Scholars worry that children lose parental language too quickly. Universal finding of rapid switch to English. Why are Americans worried about English?