Millions of people come to America, the most diverse country in the world, in search for the American Dream. Everyone has their own of American Dream leading them to success. Culture shapes our way of life and is learned through the society that we were born into. Many different kinds of immigrants come to America including white, black, rich, poor, religious, etc. Each have their own way of life and their own customs. Coming to America will be a different lifestyle and it will take time to get used to adopting the various mannerisms. Being born into a certain culture can determine one’s values and behaviors. Traditions change when entering a new setting. Immigrants coming to America have to assimilate to a great degree in an economic and social …show more content…
America has influenced and has been influenced from different points of view. Immigrants may find American culture confusing and different from theirs. Adapting to a new culture is difficult but necessary in order to feel more comfortable in the environment they live in. Even though Americans are known for wanting materialistic objects, focusing on the future is more important to achieving success. Immigrants should focus on being economically stable before focusing on what they want to buy. Assimilation takes time to get used to because having to adjust to different diversities takes patience. Immigrants usually come to America to become more successful so in order to do that they need to prioritize what is more important. It is their new homeland and it will take time to adapt to it. Learning the English language is essential to becoming successful. Being bilingual will provide the immigrants with more opportunities in their daily lives. It will make their transformation much easier. According to Munoz, “It was simultaneously the language of the white population and a path toward the richer, expansive identity of American” (Munoz 308). Munoz is saying that knowing the English language will give immigrants more paths to go down. It will provide them with tools to becoming a more successful and richer …show more content…
Physical appearance is the first thing that gets noticed about your person. Having the sense of comfort in the way you look is essential to surviving in a new society. Some Americans use makeup to cover up their imperfections. In some cultures, makeup is forbidden and unnecessary. Applying makeup may be a culture shock to particular cultures. Munoz experiences someone of his culture changing their appearance by saying, “...she wore foundation that was several shades lighter than the rest of her skin” (Munoz 309). This Mexican gate agent worked around American people so in order to fit it she covered up her true skin color. Feeling confident in your workplace is an important aspect of assimilation. Another way of assimilating into a new society is changing your original name. Most immigrants change their name so it does not get commonly mispronounced. Immigrants might get insulted and annoyed when their name is not said correctly. Each culture has their own way of pronouncing words and sayings. Anglicizing names gives the immigrant more of an accepting feeling knowing their name is not different than any other American name. In order to avoid having names butchered by fellow Americans, they must be altered for convenience (Munoz 309). My parents are not American and they changed their original names to American names because they were getting annoyed repeating the proper pronunciation of their name. This
Language is not the only factor affecting the assimilation of people into American society, but one?s traditions also have an effect on the willingness and on the degree to which one assimilates. Some people have found that certain customs they have are not accepted in American culture and might
This situation is relative to real life instances of immigration, as those moving to America with the hopes of improving their own lives and the lives of their family members are, in some cases, unfamiliar with the English language. Therefore, they must somehow learn the ways of the new people surrounding them in order to be accepted in this environment and also be able to communicate with others so they can attempt to obtain jobs to support themselves and family. Understanding the same language clearly plays an important role in assimilating to new surroundings.
The culture of every ethnic group is beautiful in its own way and worth cherishing. Today, America is known as the great melting pot not for the number of immigrants it has but rather because of the wonderful cultures and traditions the immigrants brought with them. Immigrants do not need to forgo their mother tongue, significant celebrations or customs to become American. However to be socially accepted, they will need to learn English, take part in celebrating national holidays and fulfill their patriotic duties Americans like every other U.S citizens.
Traditionally immigrants are faced numerous challenges on a daily basis. America is known as the place where there is a chances to succeed, a place where you can be free. Numerous Immigrants came to America with the goal that they could have a more noteworthy plausibility at prevailing in life. Settlers went out on a limb a when coming to America, for some it worked out well however for others they had a troublesome time here. Regardless of the battles that the outsiders experienced, for example, emerging from others, being isolated from their families, and breaking their way of life, the settlers are as yet thankful to be in America since they were in preferable conditions over they were in their country.
An immigrant that is coming to the United States has the emotion and perception that draws to a country of opportunities; that will live in a country that will be friendly. However, most of the time, immigrant do not know that they are coming to live in a different culture, and because of that, they need to experience and adjustment in many ways, and an adjustment that will help them to do many things with confidence.
The United States has been the land of opportunity for immigrants. It is a place where immigrants from all over the world come to build a better dream and future for their families and leave from poverty, they come with nothing but determination. One thing that every immigrant brings with them is their culture. A person's culture is strongly tied to the country where they grew up. It is tied to their relationship with their family. Many people come to America from so many different places all over the world. For this reason, people call America a melting pot of cultures immigrants are striving for a better future even though when they migrate to the USA they don’t know the consequences they will face and struggle to be successful living in the United States.
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
As a nation we seem to expect everyone to assimilate into the “American Mainstream” by adopting our values, our politics, and our way of life. But assimilation is not a one-way street, and our culture is not done evolving. When two cultures meet, there should be a give and take from both sides - each one looking to learn something valuable from the other. No culture ever stops changing. We are constantly adopting new ideas and lifestyles. As travel is made easier and technology continues to connect the world, we are even more exposed to cultural input from other nations. It is incredibly ignorant to claim that any people group would be better off to abandon their own culture and adopt the culture of another nation, yet we have asked -- even forced -- Native Americans to do this for generations.
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.
In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s many immigrants came to the United States for a better way of life. I chose this particular question because I am first generation American.
People come to America in search of many things: freedom, opportunity, or wealth. Coming to America has its downsides. Immigrants are often expected to conform to the dominant culture and give up their own. This was the case for early German immigrants; but along with being purged of their own culture, they contributed to American culture.
The United States is a country primarily revolved around diversity being that it has always been made up of immigrants. For a long period of time now, we have come to face the issue of immigrants entering this country illegally at large numbers, however the number of undocumented immigrants continues to rise, but so has the government’s efforts to either keep the illegal immigrants out or deport the ones already inside. It is one thing to commit the felony of entering a country illegally, but it is another to try and resolve such an issue in an immoral fashion. I understand the government's main concern is to keep its citizens safe, and that for someone to enter a country illegally it is considered crime, however since the recent presidential
Some immigrants have trouble adapting to a new lifestyle because of limited resources. Yet, other immigrants who did not have much of a difficult time were able to integrate Spanish into a new society. For instance, Areli Martinez, a Mexican immigrant studying Psychology at UCLA, moved to the U.S. with her family in pursuit of better quality of life did not experience much difficulty in adjusting. From an email interview (see email interview above), she mentions her experiences as a Spanish speaker in California. Although it was not difficult for Martinez to adjust, her implications included language barriers and weak cultural values (see email response below). Due to language barriers and lack of cultural values, Martinez struggled with grammar and placing her thoughts on paper when she was younger, but she was later able to persevere in learning English from cultural diversity and freedom to create her own values. Further, she also realizes that importance of Spanish in both the U.S. and Mexico (Martinez). With regards to the historical roots of Spanish, the Western hemisphere have benefited from the monopolization of this language because it brings cultural and linguistic ties from a global perspective. Through Spanish, immigrants obtain a sense of identity in a heterogeneous nation and benefit from it as an emerging
It is important to understand that immigration experiences are very personal and unique. There are many different factors that play a role when immigrating to the United States, such as educational challenges, family separations, and acculturation to say the least. Each individual has a different story. However, for the most part the process of adapting to a new culture means creating a new identity in order to feel welcomed into the new culture. There may be specific events that happen to different families or individuals that make the transition and new identity formation more difficult than others.
Immigrants that are oncoming into a new country need to be able to assimilate, slowly adapt to a new culture of a nation. Coming to a country and being utterly foreign to it all can be difficult; a person will see traditions that have never come across their culture. Moreover in America, we have the freedom to exercise our rights and be able to be a multiculturalism country even though some may be ignorant. Multiculturalism is being able to express your culture in a new environment. Assimilation and multiculturalism are held at two ends of the spectrum: assimilation is having one culture and growing into a new one, while on the other hand multiculturalism is existing cultures within a region.