The Cost of Assimilation

In order to understand the societal costs of linguistic and cultural assimilation for immigrants, it’s important to have variety in the sources that I used to understand this process. It’s important to understand the linguistic and cultural assimilation that occurs through various lenses, and so in the sources that I’ve selected I’ve done my best to get not only the perspectives of other people of color, but also scholarly papers that can help me build my line of logic. In order to narrow down the demographic, I will be focusing on adult immigrants, but examining other age groups as well in order to better understand the societal costs of linguistic and cultural assimilation. Oftentimes we see how immigrants can change American culture, but we do not look at how being in America changes immigrants and it is very important to look at all angles of this dynamic. Immigration and the clashing of cultures in assimilation affects immigrants in different ways but today it hurts immigrants more than it helps them because immigrants are oftentimes born into poverty and are not given adequate support by the government to help them assimilate and navigate these issues.

First generation immigrants and their children before 9/11 and even before then might have had an easier time getting into America literally, as even if you arrived in America illegally, obtaining legal status was much easier back then. However today, the status quo is considerably different, if you are considered illegal today life becomes much more difficult. This is because of the increased restrictions on immigration and the increasingly threatening level of consequences to being caught as an illegal immigrant. In turn, the way that the children of the two differing generations are given different opportunities. Children in a pre 9/11 setting who were considered illegal immigrants would be less afraid to reach out for any resources that they could get because there were fewer consequences for the parents, whereas children who are considered illegal today would be afraid to reach out for the extra support that they need. Working through these barriers as children makes their development and their understanding of culture weaker. The program director of the Immigrant Policy Project at the National Conference of State Legislatures, Morse Ann in her essay, A Look at Immigrant Youth: Prospects and Promising Practices, addresses the topic of the prospects of immigrant youth, she supports her ideas by observing the enrollment rates of young immigrant students, their challenges with language proficiency tests, and then observing the dropout rates. Morse’s purpose is to make us aware of the challenges that immigrant youths face in the education system. She adopts a neutral tone for her audience, the readers of NCSL and others interested in the topic of immigrant youth prospects. The language proficiency tests are an extremely important detail, as “forty percent of foreign-born immigrant children and 20 percent of U.S. born children of immigrants are limited English proficient (“LEP”) (Morse). The result of this lack of English proficiency blocks opportunities for these children to perform well on standardized testing or any test in English, including doctors examinations. The level at which immigrant children speak English and how quickly they can learn it is an important factor in their success for their future. Many studies were conducted regarding these subjects and many of the results point to the same idea that children of immigrants and migrant children will do worse on tests in English. An example of this is in a 2003 report that stated that “76 percent of third graders whose command of English is limited, score below (and often well below) grade level on English tests (“Fenoll”). Not only is it harder for these children to take these tests but it’s also harder for these children to socialize with others their age because of the language barrier.

This essay closely relates to another source that I will be using by Margot Adler. Author, journalist lecturer, Margot Adler, in her book, Immigration Study: ‘Second Generation’ Has Edge, published on NPR addresses the topic of second-generation immigrant experience and possible advantages and argues that second generation immigrants might have advantages. She supports this claim by comparing groups of second-generation immigrants and comparing them with U.S born Americans and studying the difference in their success rates, then argues about the cultural differences that some immigrant groups have given them certain advantages, and then how parents push their children to succeed academically more. She adopts a neutral tone for her audience of NPR and others interested in the topic of immigrant stories. In this book she discusses how the general public in New York sees assimilation, and according to this study most young men and women think assimilation is happening at the same rate as past generations. The reason that I bring these two sources together is because they show the hardship that first generation immigrants suffer while showing the potential advantages that second generation immigrants might have.

  Second generation immigrants will be entering the workforce much more actively in the future and they will actively replace previous generations. According to a study by the Center for American Progress, “by 2030 nearly 31.5 million, or 38 percent, of the 83 million new workforce entrants will be immigrants and their children” (“Coleman”). These second generation immigrants will be bringing a lot of change to the shape and diversity of the American workforce, and hopefully this will help people who are immigrating over to assimilate in a much smoother fashion. Stories of immigrant communities sticking together to help their community as a whole move together, often sharing advice about how to move forward in the system that they were now a part of. Examples of this include Ling Wu Kong’s story who says that “every time there is a student who maxes out on the SAT, their picture is prominently placed on the front of the page in the Chinese newspapers,” (“Adler”). This quote is important to include in this situation because it helps to explain that there isn’t an actual guide for immigrant children to succeed, knowledge on how to succeed is passed through each other and not through official means. Even with a limited grasp on English, immigrant communities will often band together to help those around them move further in life. Not only this but there are other ways that communities will band together to save money. Oftentimes in American culture it is encouraged to leave home as soon as possible and that staying with your parents past a certain point is looked down upon, but in the culture of many immigrants it is encouraged to stay at home with your family. By staying at home your cost-of-living decreases, and if you are in your mid-twenties and are working you can build wealth.

While these two sources go over the issues that immigrants might suffer from or benefit from them, looking forward it is important to also consider the fact that many immigrant Americans assimilate quite easily, because by most standards, accepting English as the national language, living an American workday and taking pride in American identity is good enough to consider yourself assimilated in this new country. The standard for everyone to consider themselves assimilated is different though and these standards are not static and in the same breath, the way we receive immigrants has also changed over time. During the late 1800’s, newspapers would brazenly run ads spewing hateful rhetoric, an example of this being the “cartoons of the era depicted Irish refugees as drunken apes and Chinese immigrants as cannibals swallowing Uncle Sam” (“Lalami”). These days the news is much tamer and thankfully immigrants aren’t as demonized but that isn’t to say that this doesn’t still happen. On a national television segment, Tucker Carlson of Fox New made wildly false claims about the resettled people in Pennsylvania claiming that they “defecate in public, chop the heads off chickens, leave trash everywhere” (“Lalami”).

These media outlets only fuel the flame of hatred against immigrants and people of color everywhere. Just recently during the coronavirus pandemic, we saw an increase in hate crimes everywhere in America against the Asian American community. The COVID-19 pandemic caused a spike in hate crimes against the Asian American community because of the virus’s origin in Wuhan China. This rise in aggression which began in 2020 was only fueled by America’s then president, Donald Trump. Donald Trump during a youth rally in Arizona in which he was addressing the crowd, he called the virus “kung flu” which is incredibly racist and insensitive. It didn’t stop there for Trump; he went on during press conferences to call the novel coronavirus “Chinese flu”. These microaggressions and stereotypes that are perpetuated by popular media makes it harder for immigrants to integrate into society and slows down the process of assimilation. These stereotypes being perpetuated hurts everyone involved, especially considering how the government already lacks in support for immigrants, these comments coming straight from the head of the government is incredibly hurtful and worse for immigrants overall. Trump’s inflammatory and racist statements directly correlates with the spike of anti-Asian American hate crimes that began during the early stages of COVID.

It doesn’t end here, researcher, data analyst and journalist, Katharina Buchholz in her study, Anti-Asian Hate Crime in U.S Rises During Pandemic Year, which goes more into depth about the rise of hate crimes against Asian Americans, and argues that hate crimes against Asian people has increased tremendously, she supports this by citing that the rate of hate crimes against Asian Americans and she argues that they have become more deadly as well because of the Atlanta Spa shooting. Buchholz’s purpose in writing this study and compiling the data is to establish the facts regarding these crimes in order to spread awareness about these dangerous times. She adopts a neutral tone in this article for her audience, the readers of Statista and others interested in the topic of stopping the spread of hate. These two sources both support the idea that this increase in hate crimes is astounding, and that assimilation is harder for these Americans because they are actively seen as an outsider. Not only that, but as I had mentioned earlier regarding the government’s support in helping immigrants assimilate, it also becomes much harder when the President of America demonizes you on live television.

Immigration and the process of assimilation affects immigrants in different ways but today it hurts immigrants far more than it helps them because immigrants are born into uncomfortable / unfair situations and are not provided the adequate support from the government, be it making these immigrants more comfortable by welcoming them or any other manner of providing for its citizens. The process of assimilation is made even more difficult because of how immigrants are portrayed in the media and the hateful rhetoric that is constantly spread. First generation immigrants and their children are also less likely to receive help from the government because of things that are often out of their control, such as being considered illegal and other things. Ultimately when fighting for the rights of immigrants it is clear that much more progress could be made in these aspects.

Source List:

Adler, Margot. “Immigration Study: ‘Second Generation’ Has Edge.” NPR, NPR, 24 Aug. 2008, https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93861094.

Conan, Neal. “Immigration and Assimilation in America.” NPR, NPR, 24 May 2006, https://www.npr.org/transcripts/5428049.

Director, Madia Coleman Associate. “The Importance of Second-Generation Immigrants to the Workforce.” Center for American Progress, 19 July 2022, https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-importance-of-second-generation-immigrants-to-the-workforce/.

Fenoll, Ainoa Aparicio. “English Proficiency and Test Scores of Immigrant Children in the US.” IZA, June 2017, https://www.iza.org/publications/dp/10848/english-proficiency-and-test-scores-of-immigrant-children-in-the-us.

Lalami, Laila. “What Does It Take to ‘Assimilate’ in America?” The New York Times, The New York Times, 1 Aug. 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/01/magazine/what-does-it-take-to-assimilate-in-america.html.

Lightfoot, Alfred. “LANGUAGE AND CULTURAL ASSIMILATION: CAN WE AFFORD BILINGUAL EDUCATION?” California Journal of Teacher Education, vol. 9, no. 3, 1982, pp. 74–82. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23474544. Accessed 26 Oct. 2022.

Martin, Michelle. “Immigration and Assimilation in America.” NPR, NPR, 24 May 2006, https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5428049.

Morse, Ann. “ A Look at Immigrant Youth: Prospects and Promising Practices.” A Look at Immigrant Youth: Prospects and Promising Practices, https://www.ncsl.org/research/immigration/a-look-at-immigrant-youth-prospects-and-promisin.aspx.

Moux, Ted, and Yu Xie. “Bilingualism and the Academic Achievement of First- and Second …” Jstor, 1999, https://www.jstor.org/stable/2657529.

Reitz, Jeffrey G., and Sherrilyn M. Sklar. “Culture, Race, and the Economic Assimilation of Immigrants – Sociological Forum.” SpringerLink, Kluwer Academic Publishers-Plenum Publishers, 1997, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1024649916361.

Romaine, Suzanne. “The Global Extinction of Languages and Its Consequences for Cultural Diversity.” SpringerLink, Springer International Publishing, 1 Jan. 1970, https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-10455-3_2.

Skerry, Peter. “Do We Really Want Immigrants to Assimilate?” Brookings, Brookings, 28 July 2016, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/do-we-really-want-immigrants-to-assimilate/.

Smith, Cara, et al. “Increase in Anti-Asian Hate Crimes Impacts Community.” The Hawk Newspaper, 22 Mar. 2021, http://www.sjuhawknews.com/increase-in-anti-asian-hate-crimes-impacts-community/.

Zhang, Wei. “Limited English Proficiency and Psychological Distress among Latinos and Asian Americans.” Social Science & Medicine (1982), U.S. National Library of Medicine, Sept. 2012, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3411322/.