Quotes About Assimilation

Assimilation refers to the reduction of differences between ethnic groups over time.

Descendants of European immigrants of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries have largely assimilated into U.S. society. Groups once viewed as outsiders now view themselves, and are viewed by others, as part of the American mainstream.

For example, the experiences of the Japanese are quite different from those of the Hmong from southeast Asia, many who came as refugees in the wake of the Vietnam War. Likewise, the experiences of people of Mexican origin are quite different from those of immigrants coming from Cuba.

My conclusion is that there is considerable evidence that both Asians and Hispanics have experienced upward mobility across generations, indicative of some measure of incorporation in the United States. Asians have achieved parity, or even an advantage, when compared to whites in terms of education, income, and other outcomes.

The story for Hispanics and Asians is complicated by the fact that many are immigrants or the children of immigrants, meaning that we have to take into account how the process of adaptation and assimilation (or possible lack thereof) affects their patterns of socioeconomic achievement and health over time and across generations.

It was a mark of how little we had affected the real life of the place. I suppose part of me had thought of Hong Kong as somewhere essentially British, except with a lot of Chinese people scattered about, for local colour.

Ronald Wilson Reagan: America represents something universal in the human spirit. I received a letter not long ago from a man who said, "You can go to Japan to live, but you cannot become Japanese. You can go to France to live and not become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Turkey, and you won't become a German or a Turk." But then he added, "Anybody from any corner of the world can come to America to live and become an American.

Beyond magic, the trick to going unnoticed is to look like you belong. And magic always works the better when it's assisted with symbolism and a little subterfuge.

She had anticipated that the cultural disconnect would be vast, and she was only just coming to understand how vast it might be.

it revealed how people process disruptive information. Their first impulse is to force it into a familiar framework:

joined them later understood the arrangement, and fitted

You get used to things, he thinks, without getting used to things.

Haweeya had never been able to figure out exactly what Americans wanted. (Everything, she sometimes thought. They wanted everything.)

Indian, Chinese, and other Third World intellectuals would encounter a century or two later: how to deal with a dominant culture that one admired but that threatened to overwhelm one's own heritage, and oneself with it.

Some states banned the teaching of German in private and public schools alike.

Anybody, no matter who they were, could come right off the boat and get more rights and respect than amerikan-born Blacks.

The tolerated Assyrians were those Assyrians who have accepted their unexpected guests to become the permanent residency of their homeland and yet they are not even the guest of another homeland?

I grew up with the English language but not with the culture behind it. I was always outside that and deeply rooted in my own. I

The problem tended to be couched primarily in terms of 'helping the immigrant to adjust to the host society', despite the fact that sections of the 'host society' were acting in rather an un-host-like fashion towards the new arrivals

There is another viewpoint that must be stated without equivocation: if Muslims want to immigrate to open and developed societies in order to better themselves, then it is they who must expect to do the adapting. We no longer allow Jews to run separate Orthodox courts in their communities, or permit Mormons to practice polygamy or racial discrimination or child marriage. That is the price of "inclusion," and a very reasonable one.

both the immigrants from the tribe and bloodline and the activists of prosperity share a common delusion: they believe that it is possible to make this transition without paying the price of choosing between values. One side wants change in their circumstances without letting go of tradition; the other, overcome with guilt and pity, wants to help newcomers with the material change but cannot bring themselves to demand that they excise traditional, outdated values from their outlook.

Writers, especially those of us with roots in other countries, are rarely left to ourselves. We are asked to declare our allegiances, or they are determined for us.

Second-generation Hispanics marry non-Hispanics at a higher rate than second-generation Irish or Italians. Second-generation Hispanics' English language capability rates are higher than previous immigrant groups'.

Through my fiction, I make mainstream readers see the new Americans as complex human beings, not as just 'The Other.'