Segmented Assimilation

Segmented assimilation as a middle-range conceptual perspective emerged in the early 1990s with the publication of “The New Second Generation” by Alejandro Portes and Min Zhou in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences. The theory is built on the empirical observations that the host society is highly stratified by class and race, that the host reception is more contingent upon circumstances than inclusive of all newcomers, and that immigrants arrive with different amounts and kinds of resources to cope with resettlement and incorporation, resulting in different rates of success.

Unlike the classical straight-line assimilation theories that posit an irreversible and unidirectional path leading to the eventual incorporation into an undiffer-entiated, unified, and white middle-class mainstream by all immigrants, the segmented assimilation theory conceives of the mainstream society as shaped by systems of class and racial stratifications. It emphasizes the interaction between race and class and between group membership and larger social structures that intentionally or unintentionally exclude nonwhites. It attempts to delineate the multiple patterns of adaptation that emerge among contemporary immigrants and their offspring, accounts for their different destinies of convergence (or divergence) in their new homelands, and addresses the ways in which particular contexts of exit and reception of national origin groups affect outcomes.

From this perspective, the process of assimilation may take multiple pathways, sometimes with different turns, leading to varied outcomes. Three main patterns are discernible:

• 1.
  The time-honored upward-mobility pattern dictating the acculturation and economic integration into the normative structures of mainstream middle-class America. This is the old-fashioned path of severing ethnic ties; unlearning “old world” values, norms, and behavioral patterns; and adapting to the culture of the Anglo-Saxon core associated with the white middle class.
• 2.
  The downward-mobility pattern dictating the acculturation and parallel integration into the margins of U.S. society. This is the path of adapting to native subcultures in direct opposition to the core Anglo-Saxon culture or of creating hybrid oppositional subcultures associated with native groups trapped in the host society's margins or the bottom rungs of the society's mobility ladder.
• 3.
  Socioeconomic integration into mainstream America with lagged and selective acculturation and deliberate preservation of the immigrant community's values and norms, social ties, and ethnic institutions. This is the path of deliberately reaffirming ethnicity and rebuilding ethnic networks and structures for socioeconomic advancement into middle-class status.

The unique contexts of exit and reception determine into what segment of society the immigrant or ethnic group assimilates. The context of exit entails a number of factors, including premigration resources that immigrants bring with them (such as money, knowledge, and job skills), the social class status already attained by the immigrants in their homelands, motivations, and the means of migration. The [Page 820]context of reception includes the national origin group's positioning in the system of racial stratification, government policies, labor market conditions, public attitudes, and the strength and viability of the ethnic community in the host society. Segmented assimilation theory focuses on the interaction of these two sets of factors, predicting that particular contexts of exit and reception can create distinctive cultural patterns and strategies of adaptation, social environments, and tangible resources for the group and give rise to opportunities or constraints for the individual, independent of individual socioeconomic and demographic characteristics.

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