Assimilation, American Style

By Peter D. Salins

The past few years have witnessed an intensification of anti-immigration sentiment in America. In 1994 came the passage of California's Proposition 187, which cut off state benefits to illegal... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0465098177
• ISBN13: 9780465098170
• Release Date: January 1997
• Publisher: Basic Books
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.5" x 1.3" x 7.3"

Customer Reviews

A Rational and Compassionate Discussion of Immigration

Are you uncomfortable hearing American nativists like Pat Buchanan claim that an invasion of immigrants imperils our country and civilization? Are you disturbed by the alternatives offered by multiculturalism: endless affirmative action, ethnic identification, bi-lingual education through high school, minority dorms and minority studies in college? If so, read this book by Peter Salins and learn how ethnic and cultural diversity can co-exist with American national unity. Don't be turned off by the title. With the advent of civil rights and multiculturalism, the term "assimilation" has begun to imply a forced loss of ethnic identity and cultural heritage. Peter Salins paints a different view of history of immigration and assimilation in America: "From colonial times to present, millions of assimilated Americans from other lands have lived in their own ethnic enclaves, eaten ethnic foods, and even spoken their original languages." Such ethnic communities did not represent a failure to assimilate; instead they assisted immigrants in dealing with a new country. Some ethnic communities (such as the Amish) have lasted more than a century because they still meet needs of their members. Salins believes that assimilation in America was characterized by three simple precepts: accepting English as the national language, taking pride in American principles and identity, and living by a "Protestant" [work] ethic (self-reliant, hardworking and morally upright). Immigrants themselves didn't always learn English or identify with American principles, but their children usually did. This unforced assimilation over several generations was fundamental to America's success as a nation of immigrants. In return, immigrants were offered full citizenship after five years (a unique opportunity in a world where citizenship is usually defined by race or ethnicity) and unprecedented, but not equal, opportunity to advance economically and socially. Salins acknowledges that opportunity in capitalist America resulted in great inequalities in income and status and included the "opportunity to fail", but those who immigrated cared most about the opportunity to succeed. It was uncomfortable to wait until the last quarter of the book to find a discussion of the failure of many blacks to assimilate. This failure, properly attributed to slavery and then a century of institutionalized racial discrimination, is condemned by Salins as our "nation's historic moral and political wrong". Salins believes that the path to black assimilation was opened by the civil rights legislation and that leaders such as Martin Luther King favored assimilation. However, many African Americans have turned away from assimilation because of increasing ethnic separation, emerging disdain for the Protestant work ethic and growing cynicism about racial justice in America. Despite the fact that some blacks and Hispanics are turning towards ethnic separation, the author continues to believe that