Theories of Immigrant Incorporation Assimilation What does Assimilation

Theories of Immigrant Incorporation Assimilation? What does Assimilation Mean? Africa Day Parade, New York City

Assimilation = Americanization = Social Mobility • • • 1 st generation (immigrant) : works in poorly paid jobs or as entrepreneur, subject to stigma as a foreigner 2 nd generation (children of immigrants): educated in the US, fluent in English, perhaps understands parents’ language; estranged from parents and homeland culture; does better economically than parents 3 rd generation (grandchildren of immigrants): fully accepted in the US, goes to college, is a professional Slow cultural transformation across the generations; tension between the generations; upward mobility; “whitening” Our immigration policy built on this narrative Polish berry-pickers on a farm in Maryland, 1909

Two new theories based on immigration post-1965 • Segmented assimilation (Sociology) • Transnationalism (Anthropology) • What is happening for African immigrants?

Segmented Assimilation • In an unequal society, what are immigrants assimilating to? • Some children of immigrants are moving up; others are becoming members of the underclass • Dependent on race and class as based on neighborhood/school

Transnationalism • Immigrants are not necessarily interested in becoming “Americans”; rather, some are interested in staying and then going home • They maintain ties to their home countries: politically, socially, financially (remittances or economic development), through family, religiously Protests in Little Havana neighborhood of Miami, over Obama’s restoring of diplomatic ties to Cuba

What is happening for African Immigrants? Assimilation? Segmented Assimilation? Transnationalism? • Immigrant entrepreneurship: Senegalese hair braiding • Racialization in the United States: Nigerian 1. 5 and 2. 0 generation • Religiously

• Clientele? • Gender relations? • Marriage?

Racialization in the US • Multiple Black Identities? • Meanings of these? • What is at stake? • Does identifying as African-American or learning AA styles of dress/music mean assimilation? Segmented assimilation? Transnationalism?

• Significance of religion for belonging? • Assimilation? Segmented assimilation? Transnationalism?

Fieldwork These studies are based on interviews and observations: – What do you like about what they have done (and which you might do in your paper)? – Was there anything you would avoid doing?