1. Assimilation to American Society
Theories and Realities

2. Assimilation/Americanization = Social Mobility
1st generation (immigrant generation) arrives without wealth, education, or fluency in English: works hard as an entrepreneur or in manual labor
2nd generation (children of immigrants): fluent in English, finish school in U.S., achieve middle-class status
3rd generation (grandchildren of immigrants): go to college, successful professionals
Waters, p. 324: socially mobile white immigrants do not identify “ethnically”, 1930s
Children at Ellis Island, 1908

3. But some anthropologists found that assimilation was counterproductive to social mobility….
Punjabi immigrants to California
Farm-workers
Kept their children from the local peer culture: inside, working with the family
Pulled their daughters out of school if they weren’t doing well, to marry them early

4. In some measures of wellbeing, which often correlate to social class, immigrants do better than the native-born….
Education: lower high-school dropout rates for first generation immigrants than for second-generation immigrants or native-born
Health: immigrants live longer, on average, than the native born, although the effect wears off the longer they live in the United States (or Canada)

5. Cultural Ecology model by John Ogbu
Achievement in education is the result of the nature of the history, subordination, and exploitation of the minority group and the minority group’s interpretation and response to their oppression.
Autonomous minorities
Immigrant minorities
Subordinate or castelike minorities

6. One representation of America

7. Segmented Assimilation
If America is a stratified society, Americanization for immigrants might mean upward or downward mobility
What is Waters’ contribution to the discussion of assimilation/Americanization of West Indian immigrants?
What affects identification as Black American, West Indian (ethnic), or immigrant? Why?
Is ethnic identification a form of assimilation, or does Americanization only mean identification as Black American?
Does assimilation mean upward mobility?
Is she right to associate downward mobility with identification as Black American and upward mobility with West Indian identity?

8. Presentation of Self
1.5 and 2nd generation concerned with the presentation of self
Have you ever been conscious of your presentation of self? What is it like?

9. Neighborhood Survey You are looking for signs of:
Which groups does your immigrant group live amongst?
Immigrant, ethnic, American identifications
What does this paper suggest about why these signs are significant? (I expect you to use the readings in your paper)