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Assimilation

Contemporary use of the term assimilation has involved two processes: (a) the process whereby an individual or a group of diverse ethnic and racial minority or immigrant individuals comes to adopt the beliefs, values, attitudes, and the behaviors of the majority or dominant culture; and (b) the process whereby an individual or group relinquishes the value system of his or her cultural heritage and becomes a member of the dominant society. The early use of the term assimilation refers mainly to the process by which people of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds occupying a common territory came to achieve a cultural solidarity to sustain a national existence. Since the 19th century, the use of assimilation has been a political rather than a cultural concept. It has been used to justify selective state-imposed policies aimed at the eradication of minority cultures. As globalization results in ever-expanding trading and political relations, understanding the history and the process of assimilation becomes important as we support multicultural sensitivity and well-being of all cultural groups and individuals.

Historical Background

Sarah Simons in 1901 suggested that the word assimilation is rarely or inconsistently used in social science. The concept can be traced back to the first U.S. general treatise on immigration, published in 1848. It recorded that the United States was composed of immigrants from all over the world and that the policy of the United States was to transform everyone into British-like individuals. Scholars later called it Anglo-conformity theory. Although the practice of assimilation can be traced back thousands of years to the ancient conquerors, so well documented in the histories of Europe or Asia, this entry mainly addresses the use of the word assimilation in psychology, sociology, and anthropology.

Milton Gordon, in his 1964 book, noted that the early use of the word assimilation can be traced to the concept of the melting pot, which was first proposed by the agriculturalist J. Hector St. John Crevecoeur in 1782. In the following century, assimilation became influential in the field of American historical interpretation after Frederick Jackson Turner, in 1893, presented his paper discussing the fusion of Western frontier immigrants into a mixed English group—a new composite of American people. Politicians in the early 20th century maintained that the new types melting into one were already shaped by the American frontier in the process of nation making. The newer immigrants, mainly Southern and Eastern European at the time, were indoctrinated with the Americanism that had been established by earlier arrivals. Sociologists of that era equated assimilation with Americanization. While the concepts of Anglo-conformity and the melting pot dominated 20th-century thoughts, in the mid-1940s the sociologist Ruby Jo Reeves Kennedy studied intermarriage. She found that although intermarriage took place across national lines, there was a strong tendency for marriage to stay confined within three major religious groups, namely, Protestants, Catholics, and Jews. She posited that religion rather than nationality should determine or define assimilation and called it the “triple melting pot” theory of American assimilation.

Assimilation as a Process

Assimilation is consistently treated as a process rather than a result. It is a process that is continuous in nature and varies in degree. It is not a concept that can be dichotomized. Direct contact between an individual or a racial minority group and persons of the majority or dominant culture is required for assimilation to take place. Contacts can also be described as primary and secondary contacts. Primary contact refers to a personal network, including marriage or strong personal friendships, whereas secondary contact refers to the wider range of interactions other than with primary contacts. In general, the more numerous the points of interactions are, especially in the primary contacts, the faster the process of assimilation occurs.

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