Cultural Diversity in the Neighborhood

In conclusion, in place of the "melting pot", American culture satisfies the term "mosaic". If true assimilation were to occur, immigrants would have to abandon all their cultural practices and act in accordance to one set American ways. But, immigrants do not completely give up their traditions and practices. Their identity remains unique because of their distinct

Latin American immigrants are not just concentrated to one area of the country. Cubans mostly live in Florida, while Puerto Ricans live in the northeast, and Mexicans mostly live in the southwest (Chavez, et al, 2005: 508). Their main destinations in the United States could be based on the geographic locations of their home countries. They settle in the area of the United States that is the closest to their country of origin. The formation of ethnic enclaves is common among immigrants because it connects them to their home country. They are able to livie among people who speak the same language, or in this case the same dialect, prepare the same food, and have the same cultural values. This spatial distancing is further proof of separate ethnic identities. Immigrants tend to live within groups of people from their own countries, not just with people who identify as Latino. By living with people from their home countries, immigrants maintain connections with where they came from.

In order for assimilation to occur a minority group becomes an integrated part of the majority group; this assimilation results in non-distinguishing of one group from another by cultural characteristics. In order for this process to be complete, it must entail, not only an active effort by the minority group to shed all distinguishing actions and beliefs, and also complete unqualified acceptance of that individual by the dominant society.

It is expected that ultimately there will be a loss of ethnic distinctiveness for immigrants in the U.S., meaning the lack of attachment to the country of origin. (Golash-Boza, 2006) It is argued that all ethnic distinctiveness will no longer exist by the seventh or eighth generations. Before exploring the influence of foreign born vs. U.S. born parents on their children’s cultural assimilation; the different theories of assimilation will be explored. The idea of Assimilation came about in the early 20th century. (Golash-Boza, 2006) Assimilation is surrounded by two theories, the first that all immigrants will assimilate sooner or later and that the generational status of the individual is one of the main factors in determining the

According to Huntington, unlike previous immigrants, Hispanics wish to retain a dual culture. This presents them with the culture clash of two varying views on culture as well as education. There are several factors that have made this culture of immigrants assimilations’ so much different than the past immigrants that America has so fondly welcomed with open arms. These include contiguity, scale illegality regional concentration, persistence and historical presence.

Being an immigrant and assimilating to the American society is hard but immigrants should get use to the American society and if it’s possible immigrants should accept to lose their heritage. The article posted may 1998 “Immigrants shunning idea of assimilation” William branigin argues that “ like many others her neighborhood, where most of the residents are Mexican immigrants, the jacinto household mixes the old country with the new” immigrants shouldn’t try to keep their heritage still while in america it can cause them to assimilate less to america or it can cause them to have a harder time to assimilate into the american country. “Jacinto became a u.s citizen last April, but she does not feel like an American in fact she seems resistant to the idea of assimilating into U.S. Society.” this is can be a problem for Jacinto because she doesn’t want to

For immigrants in America, two radically different choices of culture exist. First, the immigrants can choose to stay loyal to their ancestral roots and deny mainstream culture. Instead of contributing to the melting pot of opinions present they isolate within themselves by refusing to learn both the English language and American culture as a whole. Because they cannot communicate with a majority of the population, they don’t maintain any amount of control over American ideals including both politically and socially. The second opportunity available would be to embrace this new found culture, no matter how foreign it is to them, and develop a sense of unity with America. If immigrants wish to break the currently controlled system of power and privilege in America and truly become a part of American customs, they must learn to assimilate culturally.

Immigrants come to America in search of freedom and acceptance of their cultures. According to America’s title as a “melting pot”, immigrants should be able to come to America and find exactly what they looking for. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Richard Rodriguez covers this in his essay “The Fear of Losing a Culture” when he says, “Hispanics want to belong to America without betraying the past. Yet we fear losing ground in any negotiation with America. Our fear, most of all, is losing our culture” (Rodriguez 94). If there are people from cultures who are scared to belong to America for fear of losing their culture, how can America be a “melting pot”? Rodriguez shapes the American culture in a very detrimental way. He speaks of how America believed its national strength came from diversity, but Latin America is really the bed of so many races and cultures (Rodriguez 94-95). America has turned a blind eye to Latin America, refusing to believe that Latin America is so diverse. Latin Americans have much to offer from their passion and dedication to hard work. Regardless of what America wants, Latin Americans will change America as it forces them to change (Rodriguez 95).

Katy, Texas is a town with abundant cultural diversity due to an overwhelming amount of people moving here from all over world to work in the energy industry. Only a small minority of the population was born and raised here making it among the most diverse places in the nation. Living and working as a grocery store cashier here has allowed me to interact with a variety of people in this unique melting pot, which presents an array of obstacles.

Many second generation minorities from immigrant parents are driven subconsciously to conform to new culture and social norms. For foreign born parents and native born children integrating the two cultures they inhabit brings about different obstacles and experiences. In Jhumpa’s “The Namesake” the protagonist Gogol is a native born American with foreign born parents. The difference with birth location plays an important role in assimilating to a new society in a new geography. The difficulty for parents is the fact that they’ve spent a decent amount of time accustomed to a new geography, language, culture and society which makes it difficult to feel comfortable when all of that changes. For Gogol the difficulty only lies with the cultural norms imposed by his parent’s and the culture and social norms that are constantly presented in the new society.

Latino immigrants have always had many obstacles when coming into the United States, the difference between the American and the Latin cultures is what has caused a huge hurdle that immigrants have found hard to overpass. This obstacle has caused many generations to go through cultural assimilation. Mize et al. (2012) explain that cultural assimilation is the adaptation of immigrants to unfamiliar cultural patterns, which include language and the value systems of other cultures. In order for immigrants to be successful in another country, which is not of their origin; they need to learn how to assimilate to their new homes. Immigrants have learned that they need to adapt in order to get to experience new opportunities and also to learn from new cultures that are not theirs (Mize et al., 2012). Immigrants have learned that they are not leaving behind their own believes and norms, but mixing their norms, this gives them the opportunity to create and mix their culture with the new. Cultural assimilation can be hard to achieve because in one hand it is important to change in order to live within a different culture, but on the other hand it is important for a person to maintain their identity regardless of where they live. At times immigrants find it difficult to achieve a balance and for many families it is a struggle over generations. There are different levels of assimilation, some immigrants come to the

For over thirty years, White America believed that all people who immigrated to the United States of America whether by force or will wanted to assimilate into America’s culture and become a member of a homogenous group. During this time, many immigrants decided to assimilate fearing the consequences if they did not submit to White America’s way of life. However, White American millenniums believe this antiquated way of thinking is out of touch, especially with the constant changing globalized world. In fact, many immigrants prefer acculturation instead of assimilation to retain their primary identity and culture (Chronicle 1). Furthermore, White America is accepting of the cultural differences in our country, often participating in many

Denver is the largest state of Colorado, it’s also the capital. The population for Denver is 682,545. The reason for that is Denver has a lot of cultural diversity. There are a lot of interesting things to do in Denver, CO. One thing is the Denver Downtown Aquarium. You can dine at the Aquarium Restaurant while seated around a 150,000 gallon aquarium while you eat your dinner. There are also 9 different exhibits, each one with several different and unique animals. The cost of living in Denver CO is 127.50. That covers for grocery’s, health, housing, utilities, transportation, and miscellaneous. The crime rate for Denver is 42.39 per 1,000 residents. That is a total of 28,936 crimes. There are 2 historical register in Denver. One is the

There are some, however, that do not agree with this assertion. Samuel Huntington, a political scientist, disagrees with the idea that immigrants are assimilating. He thinks that out nation is becoming “two peoples and two cultures” (Huntington pg. 1). Huntington claims in his article “The Hispanic Threat” that immigrants are not assimilating language and do not have patriotism. He focuses on the majority immigrant group in the United States, Hispanics, and explains how “in 2000, more than 28 million people in the United States spoke Spanish at home, and of those 28 million, 13.8 million spoke English worse rather than very well” (Huntington pg. 5). Huntington, and others who share his beliefs, think that as Spanish culture and language increases in the United States, the more committed Hispanics will be to their ethnic identity, not assimilating to the Anglo-Protestant culture America was built on (Huntington).

Alejandro Portes and Min Zhou introduced the concept of segmented assimilation, which stressed a three-part path: assimilation for those with advantages in human capital, an ethnic disadvantage for some because of poverty and racialization, and the selective retention of ethnicity for yet others. Assessing present levels of assimilation among today's immigrant groups requires considering the possibility that the process itself may be changing. To ascertain this, we must first understand three major theories of immigrant and ethnic-group integration. The theories are the classic and new assimilation models, the racial/ethnic disadvantage model, and the segmented assimilation model. One of the general, classic assimilation theory sees immigrant/ethnic