Debates about Assimilation

1. Debates about Assimilation • What are immigrants assimilating into? Is there a core culture? Are there different segments to American society that immigrants are assigned to?

2. Can the success of past assimilation be repeated? • What caused the successful incorporation of European immigrants? • Did the successful incorporation of European immigrants rest on forced Americanization or unintended consequences of other activities?

4. Segmented AssimilationAlejandro 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.

5. 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

6. 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.

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

8. 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.

9. 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?

10. 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

11. Coercion or Individual Choice? • Limits and possibilities of Americanization campaigns. • Americans have an image of past assimilation as the “invisible hand” They are wary of government involvement.

12. What does it mean to be an American? • Samuel Huntington: There is no Americano dream. There is only the American dream created by an Anglo Protestant society. Mexican Americans will share in that dream only if they dream in English.

13. Gov’t support for assimilation • Should it be up to the government to help racial and ethnic groups change so that they blend into the larger society, or should this be left up to the groups themselves? • 78% Up to Groups Themselves • 22% Government

14. Government Help for Immigrants • The Irish, Italians, Jews, and many other minorities overcame prejudice and worked their way up. Today's immigrants should do the same without any special favors. • 82% agree

15. Invisibility of Assimilation • The cutoff of European migration in the 1920s meant that over the course of the 20th Century there was no replenishment of the “ethnicity” of European immigrants. The ethnic groups aged. • Their assimilation into American society was very visible. • Current immigrants are being replenished and their assimilation is often hidden.

16. Comparing Europe and U.S. Why compare? You can see assumptions that are often unexamined by using a comparative lens. Understand how institutions operate to affect immigrants Understand the experience of Muslims in the US and Europe

17. Comparative View • Compare Policies • Who gets in? • Integration Policies • Industrialized Countries are all facing Low Birth Rates and the Need for Immigrants

18. Comparative View Birthright Citizenship vs. The Alternative The experiences of countries such as Germany, France, Switzerland and Belgium show that restrictive citizenship regimes do not lead to emigration, but rather to deep social problems, lack of integration and decreased social mobility.

22. Total Fertility Rates – Europe and North America 1950-2000 In chart minimum value in y axis is 0.5 and crosses at 0.75 In PowerPoint a white fill box has been used to blank out the 0.5 ____________________ Source: United Nations

23. Source: Kohler, Billargi and Ortega. Calculated from United Nations medium projections.

24. Source: Kohler, Billargi and Ortega. Calculated from United Nations medium projections.

25. Source: Kohler, Billargi and Ortega. Calculated from United Nations medium projections.

26. Citizenship By Ascription place of birth (jus soli) law of the earth line of descent (jus sanguinis) law of the blood By Naturalization As a right At the discretion of the state

27. Citizenship in the U.S. By birth (even if parents are illegal, or here for a short period of time) (jus soli) By birth abroad if parents are citizens (jus sanguinis) By adoption By naturalization if they comply with conditions specified by law

28. U.S. Citizenship Rules 5 year residence Oral and written English ability Knowledge of US history and government Good moral character Oath of allegiance No dual citizenship (ambiguous) Give up foreign allegiance

29. US does little to promote naturalization No notice is sent to immigrants or refugees to let them know when they are eligible. Very little public funding pays for language or civics classes. Long backlogs of people waiting for citizenship to come through.

30. Current European Immigration Southern and Eastern Europeans moving to Northern and Western Europe. Guest workers who became permanent. Immigrants from Former Colonies: Indians, Pakistanis, West Indians to Britain, Algerians and Moroccans to France, Surinamese to Netherlands.

31. Current European Immigration Countries of emigration have become countries of immigration Italy, Spain, Portugal, Turkey, Ireland Fall of Soviet Union opened up immigration from Eastern Europe to Western Europe Strong human rights orientation, asylum and refugees a large part of immigration flows.

32. Current European Immigration Former Communist Countries such as Poland, Romania Asylum Seekers, especially from Africa

33. Countries of Immigration? Germany: Until 1990’s: “We are not a country of immigration”. (Post war immigrants and their children are 10% of population). Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Advice to authors: “Avoid “immigrant” for non migrant members of the second generation”

34. Laws on Citizenship Vary France and Britain have jus soli conditionally. (France: Ask at age 16-21). Extensive naturalization for ex colonials. Yet there remains much ambivalence about French citizenship for Algerians. Sweden and Netherlands have highest rates of naturalization. Allow voting in local elections. Germany, Austria, Switzerland most restrictive.

35. Birthright Citizenship Australia, Ireland, India, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Malta, and the Dominican Republic — have modified birthright citizenship in recent years.

36. US Birthright Citizenship Birthright Citizenship Act of 2009, to deny citizenship to children of the undocumented and other non citizens, introduced by Rep. Deal (R-Ga.), with 100 co-sponsors.

37. Switzerland 20% of the population is “foreign” Immigrants must wait 12 years before applying. Local governments inspect home Local cantons vote on candidates. Even the third generation has no automatic citizenship

39. Types of Immigrants in Europe National migrants—those considered citizens returnng “home” “ Saxons from Romania into Germany EU Citizens living in other EU countries. 1993: 13 million foreign residents, 6 million were EU members. Ex-colonial peoples Indians, Pakistanis, West Indians in UK North Africans, Southeast Asians in France Eritreans and Somalis in Italy Surinamese in Netherlands

40. Types of Immigrants in Europe Recruited workers from noncolonial countries (former Guest Workers) Turks in Germany Refugees and Asylum Seekers Accepted Illegal Workers Polish construction workers in Germany African harvest workers in Italy Rejected illegal immigrants

41. BoundariesRichard Alba enacted social distinctions, i.e., distinctions that individuals make in their everyday lives and that shape their actions and mental orientations towards others; typically embedded in a variety of social and cultural differences; matter when linked to unequal life chances and status

42. Boundary construction institutionalization of social distinctions, i.e., patterned manifestations of distinctions to social actors importance of correlated social distinctions—here, distinctions that correspond with the immigrant-native one role of social distance (e.g., segregation) and “objective” social and cultural differences

43. Key points boundaries are not the same everywhere boundaries can change over time native groups may seek to make boundaries less porous boundaries may be weakened by structural changes, e.g., occupational shifts associated with demographic change

44. Boundaries: bright vs. blurred Bright boundary is unambiguous, blurred one may be ambiguous (for some individuals or in some contexts) Race vs. language (bilingualism)

45. Change Over Time Boundary crossing Individual level assimilation Passing Boundary blurring Individuals location can be indeterminate Boundary shifting Former outsiders become insiders European immigrants in the US

46. Boundaries: bright vs. blurred Bright boundary: assimilation less likely assimilation requires boundary crossing, i.e., is individualistic, less gradual, typically risky, does not allow “hyphenation”

47. Boundaries and the Second Generation France and Germany : religion is a bright boundary Germany: citizenship is a bright boundary Individual boundary crossing? US: Mexicans and race, blurred vs bright boundary?

48. Race, Color and Culture In the US we ask how are new immigrants racialized? Anti-immigrants worry about the race composition, Brimelow, Alien Nation. “the end of the white race” How do new immigrants affect established racial minorities Political Science: Hispanic ascendancy Economics: Effects on Black labor market outcomes Sociology: Segmented assimilation

49. Race, Color and Culture In Europe: Much less comfortable with the concept of race. France: ethnicity not a statistical category Britain: ‘Race’ in quotation marks Germany: Blood, race, Nazi connotations In Europe: Immigrants tend to be stigmatized based on culture rather than color.

50. Race, Color and Culture Netherlands Moroccans and Turks less accepted than Surinamese of African ancestry but who share more Dutch culture. “Black schools” refer to schools with large numbers of Turks and Moroccans. If immigrants are seen as immutably different and inferior, is that cultural racism?