Ethnic Pluralism Vs Assimilation Analysis
Hong-Yi Pei
AFS 202
Takeyuki Tsuda
Extra Credit Discussion Paper
11/21/2012
Assimilation Versus Ethnic Pluralism In the reading I did, two of the immigrant adoption methods were introduced firmly and precisely. From reading those two articles, I gained my own knowledge and understanding towards both two different types of immigration adaptation. Furthermore, I also developed my own thoughts toward those different types of adaptation. Although I couldn't judge which method is optimal, from the viewpoint as a person who live outside of United States for most of my life, I could say I favor ethnic pluralism more. In order to reveal my thoughts in developing my own opinion, I'll describe and compare both two types of adaptation. Ultimately, I'll explain …show more content…
For a long time, assimilation was the dominant ideology, where immigrants and minorities socially integrated into American society. However, contemporarily America has become an multicultural society, where the minority group has outweigh the majority group in number. Therefore, assimilation is no longer seen as a completely inevitable and desirable process, and is even criticized for it's nature of culture eradication. In the reading written by Richard Alba and Victor Nee, Alba and Nee suggested that despite the deficiencies of traditional assimilation, it is still being the best way to understand and describe the integration into the mainstream experienced across generations by many individual and ethnic groups. Thus, they proposed a reformulation of assimilation which the definition is very different. In their version of assimilation, it is no longer a process which minorities loses their cultural traits and merges into the majority host society. It became a process where reduction of ethnic differences takes place between two
AFS 202
Takeyuki Tsuda
Extra Credit Discussion Paper
11/21/2012
Assimilation Versus Ethnic Pluralism In the reading I did, two of the immigrant adoption methods were introduced firmly and precisely. From reading those two articles, I gained my own knowledge and understanding towards both two different types of immigration adaptation. Furthermore, I also developed my own thoughts toward those different types of adaptation. Although I couldn't judge which method is optimal, from the viewpoint as a person who live outside of United States for most of my life, I could say I favor ethnic pluralism more. In order to reveal my thoughts in developing my own opinion, I'll describe and compare both two types of adaptation. Ultimately, I'll explain …show more content…
For a long time, assimilation was the dominant ideology, where immigrants and minorities socially integrated into American society. However, contemporarily America has become an multicultural society, where the minority group has outweigh the majority group in number. Therefore, assimilation is no longer seen as a completely inevitable and desirable process, and is even criticized for it's nature of culture eradication. In the reading written by Richard Alba and Victor Nee, Alba and Nee suggested that despite the deficiencies of traditional assimilation, it is still being the best way to understand and describe the integration into the mainstream experienced across generations by many individual and ethnic groups. Thus, they proposed a reformulation of assimilation which the definition is very different. In their version of assimilation, it is no longer a process which minorities loses their cultural traits and merges into the majority host society. It became a process where reduction of ethnic differences takes place between two