Assimilation in Dealing with Immigration

Assimilation in Dealing with ImmigrationImmigration is a touchy subject that is often debated passionately about.  With “current estimates placing annual immigration (legal and undocumented) to the United States at approximately 1 million persons per year” (Alba 3), many Americans worry if this is a sustainable practice.  But with all the debates and arguments surrounding the current number of immigrants in the country, one question that remains is how do we integrate such large numbers of migrants into the fabric of American society?   Some would argue for multiculturalism, but assimilation has been the historical means of dealing with such an issue.  Assimilation should continue to be the main objective in dealing with immigration because historical records show the added benefits of this type of integration into American society.             With millions of immigrants currently residing in the U.S., policies must encourage these new immigrants to integrate into American society.  According to Siobhan Holohan, “In the U.S. model prevalent for the first part of the 20th century, new immigrants were encouraged to “Americanize” to achieve social stability and economic success and minimize so-called self-segregation between communities” (Holohan) .   Holohan continues by saying “assimilation or cultural homogeneity would lead to less conflict between groups as they came together under one belief system.” Under assimilation, the minority group would adapt to the culture of the host nation and strengthen the country. Assimilation would mitigate cultural boundaries and segregation for the immigrant communities.  Some would argue that this is unjust to the immigrants and would label “assimilation as a radical, unidirectional process of simplification; ethnic minorities shed themselves of all that makes them distinctive and become carbon copies of the ethnic majority.  In this view, assimilation imposes a bland homogeneity where a more interesting heterogeneity had existed before . . . However, the degraded conception of assimilation loses sight of two things: one is, of course, that American society is far from homogeneous, and the other that immigrant ethnicity has affected American society as much as American society has affected it” (Alba 7).    Multiculturalism would lead to opposing groups with different beliefs constantly arguing over the direction of future policies of the society.   Thus, multiculturalism would lead to a weaker host nation that is divided internally by raging opinions and ultimately leads to self-segregation between the groups.  The host nation must realize that assimilation will take time to implement.  According to Holohan, “…many first-generation immigrants reject the culture of their new country of residence and maintain their previous life in self-sufficient segregated migrant communities” (Holohan).   Yet, “assimilation can take place despite the intentions of immigrants to resist it.  Assimilation can occur as the often-unintended cumulative by-product of choices made by individuals seeking to take advantage of opportunities to improve their social situations” (Alba 8).  The host nation should implement policies that encourage the integration of immigrants into the fabric of American society.   By making the American dream a possibility through assimilation, the nation would benefit economically and socially. During and after World War II, assimilation helped African-American soldiers’ offspring with native Germans adapt to European society.  During this time Germany did not have an African subculture like the one that persists in America, which led to no difference in IQ test results between white Germans and African Germans. In Thomas Sowell’s book Intellectuals and Society, he quotes Professor Flynn as saying, “. . . That the reason for results being different in Germany (compared to America) was that the offspring of Black soldiers in Germany “grew up in a nation with no black subculture” (Sowell 431).   This demonstrates that multiculturalism does not provide the solution to America’s immigration problem and in reality, only leads to long-term suffering of the immigrants because of self-segregation. The host nation should keep an open mind and understand the ever-changing issues that surround immigration.  If properly implemented, assimilation will lead to a brighter future for all.   According to Richard Alba, “On average, it is still true that the opportunities outside an immigrant ethnic group are greater than it can provide within its residential and economic enclaves” (Alba 21).  For this reason, policies should be implemented that encourage assimilation of the immigrant community.   Even if multiculturalism has short-term benefits to the immigrants, over the long term it will lead to devastating economic and social costs. Immigration will continue to be an extremely debated topic for years to come.  The end goal of any immigration program should focus on integration by means of assimilation.  Through assimilation, immigrants will thrive in their new host nation by means of social and economic freedom.  By becoming part of American culture, they will reject the negatives and suffering that is caused by multiculturalism and self-segregation.
Works CitedAlba, Richard. "Immigration and the American Realities of Assimilation and Multiculturalism." Sociological Forum 14.1 (1999): 3-25. Print.Holohan, Siobhan. "Assimilation." Encyclopedia of Global Studies. 2012. Online.
Sowell, Thomas. Intellectuals and Society. Basic Books, March 2012. Online.