The Importance Of Acculturation In America

I do not really know what brought about this outburst but as an immigrant of this country for many years, I am proud of the different cultures that has evolved from the day I first came here.

One component of our society that demonstrates the concept of acculturation is food. People with Chinese, Hispanic, Italian, and French roots carry their own culture while still accepting the customs in America. In restaurants, the food they serve follows the same traditions that could be found in other countries while still adapting to the language and culture of the whites. While acculturation is more accepting to the majority of society, minorities can still be treated harshly. The Jews, for example, were willing to adapt to the German culture. In fact, many of the Jews loved the Germans and wanted to be one united culture. At the same time, the Jews wanted to keep their religion and some aspects of their culture: “The vast majority never hid the fact that they were Jews.” (Elon, 8). Some people like Moses Mendelssohn believe that it was possible to be Germans and Jews at the same time. However, the Germans felt threatened by the intellect of the Jews and began to deny them all opportunities to succeed in society. Rejection is one of the negative outcomes that can result from acculturation. In addition acculturation can lead to many outcomes

People respond differently- parents respond differently than children 3. Without affiliating oneself with an ethnic group makes acquiring economic success difficult because that group's money is lost.

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

Assimilation is the manner in which people of a cultural group start to lose their individuality that makes them different from the more dominant culture, as they seek to fit in. America has been a melting pot of different cultures for centuries, whether it was by choice, forced or for a better life. History has proven that assimilation in America was not acceptable but that has changed over time.

From Chinatown to Monterey Park, Asian Americans across the boundaries of Los Angeles are flourishing from bustling inner cities to middle class suburbia. The suburban life style was originally created by white Americans for white Americans however in today’s suburban cities and towns there seems to be a substantial group of Asians and Asian Americans thriving in these once predominately white areas(Li 1993, 318). The development of Asians and Asian Americans in the suburbs occurred through the following three ways, first is the development of Chinatown and how it became the Mecca for immigrants and the second is Asian American assimilation into American society. The last reason is the gentrification of towns such as Chinatown, and Little Tokyo.

Assimilation patterns differ in societies that are characterized by paternalistic race relations than in societies characterized by competitive race relations. According to the lectures and readings, assimilation is defined as a process by which minority and majority groups are merged into some total societal unit. There are also three different type of assimilation which are Anglo (or dominant group) conformity, the Melting Pot, and cultural pluralism. Some additional concepts that go along with assimilation are acculturation where the minority adopts the dominant culture, amalgamation the biological blending of the groups, and the transmuting pot where the dominant group selects aspects of minority culture and modifies it to fit the

“Big Trouble in Little China” starts with a white American character called Jack Burton, who delivers his cargo to a small town and during some free time plays card games in a Chinese market. After beating everyone at the game, he is proposed a bet by his friend Wang, and wins. Wang, not having enough cash to pay himself, convinced Jack to pick up his girlfriend Miao Yin at the airport, promising after which he would pay what he owed. Unexpectedly, a Chinatown gang called the Lords of Death abducts Miao, because of her green eyes. She becomes essential to being able to revive an ancient Chinese sorcerer Lo Pan and bring him back to the flesh. This marks the beginning of the

Mendez, Bauman and Guillory (2012) found that Mexican American students bullied Mexican immigrant students in a predominantly Hispanic high school. Mexican American students consistently bullied Mexican Immigrant students on language and feelings of superiority on behalf of the Mexican American students.

The majority of the current organizational cultural studies have been focused on a traditional population model, where immigrants are the quantitative minority within a substantially larger native population. This creates a problem because there is a knowledge gap about the process of acculturation of immigrants into a country in regions where they are the overwhelming majority of the population. The purpose of this dissertation was to study the process of acculturation of Hispanic immigrants in the Miami-Dade County where they are the majority, into the more general U.S. culture. To do so, this dissertation used a quantitative descriptive research methodology, based on the original Cultural Dimensions theory by Dr. Hofstede, to study the cultural

Assimilate: Premise is that all diverse people will learn to fit in or become like the dominant group. Many organizations use this approach during their socialization and orientation processes.

One of the most important concepts that I have learned from class is Assimilation Theory. This theory is based on the adaptation that a certain ethnic group goes through in order to fit in and survive in the new dominant society. For example, according to the book the United States in known to be a predominantly white cultural society, therefore many ethnic groups from all over who choose to come to the U.S often have to assimilate and adapt to the social and cultural norms. Assimilation theory affects many ethnic groups in sense that it can change the way they behave and live in a society. Whenever another ethnic

Enculturation or socialization is the process in the childhood when occurs into familiar members of culture community. Enculturation is cultural adaptation. Then second phase is acculturation. Marden & Meyer as cited in Kim (2003, p. 245) said “the change in individuals whose primary learning has been in one culture and who take over traits from another culture.” it means that learning one’s own culture as the individuals took. After acculturation, the individual start to deculturation. Deculturation means that the individual entering the process of learning the new culture. For example, food habit, behavior and values from a new culture. When an individual learning something new, it will also lose something old. Last phase is assimilation. Assimilation is the last phase of acculturation and deculturation. Acculturation, deculturation and assimilation are the process when individual experiences cross-cultural adaptation.

If I was an international traveler or an intercultural trainer within my organization and I had to train a group of people going to India about the culture. I will first start off by saying I know you guys are not use to the enculturation of India. According to lecture enculturation means the process which your native culture is acquired. To explain it to my groups members very thoroughly I would say “I know you guys are not of custom or practice the India culture but you guys have to acculturation to the culture of India”. The word acculturation from lecture class means the process by which you learn and adapt to other cultures. That’s what exactly the group of people I’m training going to have to do. At first it’s going to be a major culture shock for the group of people I’m training because they know nothing about how to handle culture in India but, I’m pretty sure my group is going to acculturation to the culture of India.