Assimilation theories
Assimilation theories explore how individuals or groups adopt the culture of a dominant society, involving changes in language, values, and behaviors. Two primary models within these theories are the melting pot and Anglo-conformity. The melting pot concept suggests that diverse groups can combine to create a new, unified culture, while Anglo-conformity posits that immigrants should abandon their cultural heritage in favor of Anglo-Saxon norms commonly found in North America.
Key theorists, such as Milton Gordon, emphasize that assimilation is not just about cultural adoption but also about structural integration into the larger society. Critics argue that these models overlook the complexities of racial and ethnic identity, with assimilation often being more challenging for non-white groups due to ongoing discrimination. Additional perspectives, such as those from Nathan Glazer and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, suggest that ethnic groups may retain distinct identities rather than fully conforming or melting into the dominant culture.
Theories of assimilation have also sparked debates about language and cultural hierarchy, particularly evident in movements advocating for English as the official language, which critics claim may reinforce systemic inequities. Overall, assimilation theories provide a framework for understanding the dynamics of cultural integration while raising important questions about identity, acceptance, and the impact of societal structures on diverse populations.
Assimilation theories
SIGNIFICANCE:Assimilation refers to the process by which individuals or groups take on the culture of the dominant society, including language, values, and behavior, as well as the process by which groups are incorporated into the dominant society. The melting pot theory and Anglo-conformity are two models of assimilation.
Assimilationist theories suggest that the outcome of race and ethnic relations in society is assimilation: the ultimately harmonious blending of differing ethnic groups into one homogeneous society. A key question that emerges among assimilationist theorists concerns the basis of that homogeneity. The melting pot theory holds that distinct groups will each contribute to the building of a new culture and society that is a melting pot of all their differing values and behaviors, and the Anglo-conformity theory holds that (in North America) the varying groups will all adopt the values and behaviors of the dominant, Anglo-Saxon group.
Anglo-Conformity
According to Milton Gordon in his book Assimilation in American Life (1964), assimilation involves both acculturation and structural assimilation, wherein groups are fully incorporated into, and indistinguishable from, the larger society. Cultural assimilation, or acculturation, however, can proceed in either a melting pot pattern or an Anglo-conformity pattern. Gordon, who attributes the Anglo-conformity thesis to Stewart Cole, states that this pattern requires that immigrants completely abandon their cultural heritage in favor of Anglo-Saxon culture. According to Gordon, those who propose Anglo-conformity as a viable ideal of assimilation view the maintenance of the English language, institutions, and culture as desirable. Such views, in his estimation, are related to nativist programs that promote the inclusion of those immigrants who are most like the English as well as to programs that promote the acceptance of any immigrants willing to acculturate on the basis of Anglo-conformity. According to Gordon, those espousing the Anglo-conformity ideal cannot be automatically labeled racist, although, as he puts it, all racists in the United States can be called Anglo-conformists. Furthermore, Anglo-conformists tend to assume that English ways and institutions are better than others. Even those who do not support that view argue that these ways and institutions, regardless of their relative merit, do predominate in existing American society. Therefore, newcomers must adapt to what is already in place. Anglo-conformists also assume that once immigrants have acculturated based on Anglo-conformity, they will be found acceptable and will no longer be the targets of prejudice and discrimination.
Melting Pot
Although the Anglo-conformity ideal has been the prevalent form of assimilation proposed, the melting pot ideal has also been an important and influential aspect of assimilationist thought. Particularly in the early twentieth century, those who viewed American society as a new experiment in which diverse peoples came together to forge a new culture saw Americans as a new “race” of people. In this view, the United States was a giant melting pot that received all immigrants, melting them—and their cultures—down into one homogeneous and unique group.
The melting pot theory of assimilationist theory was implied by sociologist Robert Ezra Park’s theory of the race relations cycle, suggested in the 1920s. In that theory, Park presented the idea that assimilation involves both cultural and biological processes. In other words, Park conceived of assimilation as accomplished both by the “interpenetration” of distinct cultures, in which each group takes on some of the others' culture, and by amalgamation, or biological mixing through intermarriage and reproduction.
Gordon criticizes melting pot idealists for failing to discuss whether all groups can contribute equally to the final mixture. Furthermore, since Anglo-Saxons arrived in colonial North America before other immigrants, they were able to establish the social order into which newer immigrants are expected to “melt.” Because of this difference in group influence on the American character and society, Gordon claims that the melting pot ideal masks the fact that non-Anglo-Saxons are the ones expected to change. Furthermore, although some differences, such as nationality, can be melted down among whites, other differences, such as race and religion, are either not willingly given up or cannot be melted away. Blacks and other people of color, according to Gordon, are prevented from melting down by racial discrimination.
Other Theories and Criticisms
In their book Beyond the Melting Pot, Nathan Glazer and Daniel Patrick Moynihan review the melting pot theory in the light of continuing ethnic diversity and conflict in New York City. Glazer and Moynihan believed that ethnic groups could join society if they were willing to change, to acculturate. Unlike Gordon, Glazer and Moynihan do not view prejudice as the major obstacle to assimilation. They view internal group weaknesses as the major obstacle; they also cite the lack of a single American identity for immigrants to adopt. Glazer and Moynihan think that ethnic groups develop a new ethnic identity, thus remaining distinct—neither melted down nor conforming to the Anglo model.
In his 1981 book, The Ethnic Myth, Stephen Steinberg states that the early rise of nativism in the United States implies that Anglo-conformity dominated assimilationist views. Nativism refers to the desire to maintain the given ethnic character of society or particular social institutions. Generally, nativists see themselves as the real Americans and are xenophobic, or fearful and hateful of foreigners. Anglo-Saxon settlers wished to preserve their cultural legacy in the face of massive immigration that labor shortages forced them to tolerate. Perhaps one of the greatest instruments for Anglo-conformity has been the centralized system of public education that was developed in the United States. Immigrants were and are taught English language skills, as well as citizenship, and are thus Americanized. According to Gordon, other forms of Anglo-conformity assimilation include political movements by nativists to exclude “foreigners” from social institutions, favoring immigration only by people similar in background and culture to Anglo-Saxons, and basing social inclusion on the adoption of Anglo-Saxon culture by immigrants.
Park, who supported the melting pot theory, held that the melting pot would emerge through amalgamation—accomplished through intermarriage across lines of ethnicity. Intermarriage then becomes an important measure of the extent to which groups are merging into one homogeneous group. Studies of intermarriage reveal that ethnic groups, in particular, are marrying across group lines, though not always across religious or racial lines. For example, intermarriage has increased substantially between Jews and non-Jews, although in-marriage is still strong for Italian Americans and Irish Americans. Intermarriage still tends to be culturally prohibited across racial lines, reflecting important differences between race and ethnicity that melting pot theorists tended to downplay in their analyses.
Assimilationist theorists generally have not distinguished race from ethnicity. They have not ignored the significant differences between the levels of assimilation of white ethnic groups and groups of other races; they explain them either as a product of the greater prejudice held against people who look different or as a product of the failure of nonwhite minorities to conform to and embrace the dominant culture. Assimilationist theorists view prejudice as the product of the differences that minority group members present to the dominant society. As group members acculturate, these differences diminish, and the people are accepted by the dominant society. They then no longer experience discrimination.
English-Only Movements
One of the many ways nativist groups have tried to force their assimilation concepts onto other groups in the United States took the form of English-Only Movements. These were efforts, emerging periodically in different centuries, that called for the designation of English as the official language of the United States. These movements typically presented themselves during times of stress, such as in wartime, or in periods of demographic change. On the surface, these movements suggested that having English as the official language of the country would lead to greater cost efficiencies in areas such as education, business transactions, and government communications. Others suggested these groups intended to force non-Anglo communities to be more identical to the majority culture. Detractors also maintained that these were disguised efforts to instill a cultural hierarchy within the United States with a particular cultural community seated at the top.
English-Only movements tended to target new arrivals, such as immigrants, or other groups that spoke native languages other than English and had dissimilar cultural practices. Oftentimes, these movements targeted communities that, ironically, may have predated the arrival of Anglo counterparts. Such efforts took place among Native American tribes, Hispanic communities in the American Southwest, and native Hawaiians. Critics also countered English-Only laws violated First Amendment provisions to Free Speech.
One of the more recent manifestations of English-Only efforts was the attempted passage in 2019 of a bill designating English as the official language of the United States. The bill did not pass in session.
Bibliography
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