Should immigrants assimilate into american political culture

Policy analysis requires improved information on, for example, the speed of adjustment to jobs, English language abilities, fertility changes, and individual endowments and community context.

Workshop discussion suggested that additional research is needed on immigrant assimilation and federal programs. First, workshop participants emphasized the need for contextual analysis, work that takes into account situations in which immigrants differ by type of entry and type of environment. Second, a moderate proportion of immigrants return to their countries of origin. Studies of return migration could provide useful insights into assimilation or, in some cases, lack of assimilation.

Third, different types of immigrants face different eligibility rules for welfare participation. Useful comparative studies of recent immigrants could be conducted that take advantage of the natural variation in welfare eligibility. Fourth, the visa category of immigrant entry is important for policy studies on the effects of immigration because the characteristics of legal immigration are affected by the number of visas issued.

The decennial census and the Current Population Survey are not appropriate for collecting immigration status, however, because they are self-administered respondents often do not know their specific immigrant status and questions on immigration status on the Current Population Survey could affect the collection of employment data.

Expanded data on immigration status could be collected better on special surveys or in conjunction with linked Immigration and Naturalization Service administration records. Fifth, most new immigrants in recent decades are members of racial and ethnic minorities. This introduces a new and complicated context for immigration studies, with the requirement for information on racial identity in conjunction with the analysis of other immigrant characteristics.

In the absence of a longitudinal survey of immigrants that would permit the estimation of duration models, the decennial census and the Current Population Survey are the primary instruments for analyzing the impacts of immigration. Modest revisions to both instruments with data on place of birth, citizenship, and year of arrival would greatly enhance the range of possible analyses. It would also be worthwhile to add questions on immigration status to the core questionnaire for the Survey of Income and Program Participation, rather than limiting these questions to the topical modules.

However, simply distinguishing immigrants from natives will not further the understanding of integration processes unless additional questions about immigration histories especially the first and most recent arrival are included as well.

The Survey of Income and Program Participation is uniquely suited to examine employment and income dynamics over short durations, but it would be less successful in portraying long-term experiences of successive cohorts of immigrants, even if sample sizes were.

Furthermore, contextually based analyses are virtually impossible with the Survey of Income and Program Participation. To aid in monitoring the self-sufficiency of refugees, the Office of Refugee Resettlement in the U. Department of Health and Human Services has conducted a national survey of Southeast Asian refugees, which has proven invaluable for monitoring the economic progress of political immigrants. The Annual Survey of Refugees was converted to a longitudinal survey beginning with the interviews, tracking a randomly sampled group of refugees over their initial five years in the country.

The survey permits comparisons of refugees arriving in different years and hence allows an evaluation of the relative influence of changing conditions of the period on the process of economic and social integration. The survey would be strengthened if two changes were made. First, the length of time refugee families are followed should be extended from the current 5 to at least 10 years.

This is necessary because, at least in California, a significant share of the refugee population had not exited welfare after five years of U. Because many refugees remained dependent on welfare at the end of the study period, the data analysis is limited by the small number of refugees who have made the transition to work and adequate income. Second, it would be useful to include other entrants such as Haitian and Cuban [Mariel] "entrants," even though they did not enter the United States as refugees in the Annual Survey of Refugees so that their adjustment experiences can be compared more systematically with those of Southeast Asian refugees.

Federal programs to assist immigrants economically began in the early s with efforts to aid refugees from Cuba. These programs have continued, with an emphasis on providing economic support to refugees.

Given the national interest in programs to deal with the economic situation of immigrants, the lack of data on the incidence and prevalence of poverty among the foreign-born population is a serious deficiency. It is important to note that the adjustment of immigrants differs for legal immigrants, illegal aliens, and refugees—each of whom has different social and economic characteristics and different eligibility for federal and state welfare programs.

Refugees in California, for instance, seem to remain on welfare longer than other immigrants. In contrast, the welfare participation of aliens legalized under the provisions of the Immigration Reform and Control Act seems to be comparatively low. The growing importance of immigration in the United States today prompted this examination of the adequacy of U.

This volume summarizes data needs in four areas: immigration trends, assimilation and impacts, labor force issues, and family and social networks. It includes recommendations on additional sources for the data needed for program and research purposes, and new questions and refinements of questions within existing data sources to improve the understanding of immigration and immigrant trends.

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Sign up for email notifications and we'll let you know about new publications in your areas of interest when they're released. Statistics on U. Get This Book. Visit NAP. Looking for other ways to read this? No thanks. Immigration Page 28 Share Cite. Suggested Citation: "3 Effects of Immigration and Assimilation. Page 29 Share Cite. Social Policy and Welfare 1. Employment and Income Dynamics. Page 30 Share Cite. The Context of Immigration. Page 31 Share Cite.

Comparing Political and Economic Immigration. Page 32 Share Cite. Effects of Amnesty. Page 33 Share Cite. Perinatal Health 2. Page 34 Share Cite. Mental Health. Page 35 Share Cite. Educational Attainment. Page 36 Share Cite. Research Needs. Page 37 Share Cite.

The predominant portion of immigration studies has focused on the problems arising from immigration. Studies are needed that examine the overall effects of immigration, not just the negative impacts.

There is a difference between cultural assimilation e. She and other immigrants stood, put their hands on their hearts, and repeated the oath of allegiance, prompted by a woman on the stage. At the end of the ceremony, they cheered and waved the little American flags they received with their naturalization certificate. Though the ceremony was not personal or intimate or culturally sensitive , its very size made it impressive, because of the diversity on display.

The people who filled the auditorium that morning in August came from 82 countries about half with a non-Christian heritage and represented nearly all the nationalities on the planet. Many of the women wore headscarves, and some of the men wore skullcaps. Three of the top four countries represented—India, Pakistan, and Ethiopia—had prior to been allocated only a few U.

Along with her, 37 other Salvadorans took the citizenship oath. For Marta, the ceremony was the culmination of a sojourn in America that had begun 22 years earlier at a detention center on the Texas-Mexico border.

America to her was the place where imagined futures did not seem hopelessly out of reach, as they would have in the village where she was raised. She wore a new black dress for the occasion and had her hair highlighted with a blond streak.

A colleague from her Days Inn cleaning job met her at the high school with a dozen red roses, which Marta held throughout the ceremony. They celebrated afterward at the International House of Pancakes. In theory, the decision to become a U. It suggests an ideological commitment that goes beyond the intent to live and work in the United States simply for money. One reason Chinese migrant workers encountered such hostility in the western U. The men often journeyed alone, under labor contracts, and intended eventually to return to their families in China.

A similar criticism was sometimes made of Hispanic immigration. A study by the Pew Hispanic Center found that people arriving from other parts of the world were almost twice as likely to become U. One possible explanation was the proximity of their homelands, which made it easier for these Hispanics to maintain old bonds that might otherwise be broken by the migration experience.

The ideological differences between the third generation and the fourth generation are still statistically insignificant see Figure 6. The third generation is virtually indistinguishable from the fourth generation. Public Policies This section analyzes responses from each generation on specific policy questions.

The first question is whether the government should do more or less see Figure 7. This very general question produces what appears to be a startling difference between the first generation and subsequent generations.

To a statistically significant extent, the first generation is more likely to say that the government should do more. The responses for the second and third generations are statistically indistinguishable from the fourth generation. The first generation's support for a more active government is noteworthy but general survey questions such as this are poor at gauging actual policy preferences.

Questions about specific policies produce a more accurate picture of immigrant policy preferences. Responses to the following specific policy questions reveal that immigrants and subsequent generations have policy opinions that are very similar to fourth-generation Americans on government spending on welfare programs Figure 8 , federal income taxes Figure 9 government assistance to the poor Figure 10 , and Social Security benefit levels Figure For Figures 8—11, the responses by the first, second, and third generations all differ to a statistically insignificant extent compared to the fourth generation.

Conclusion Immigrants have very similar political and policy views when compared to fourth-generation Americans. For those policy and political questions where first-generation immigrants have statistically significant differences of opinions, the second and third generations do not vary compared to the fourth generation, meaning that political assimilation is complete by the second generation.