One Way to Help Immigrants to Assimilate

In a recent post, I asked if assimilation was truly a positive goal, or if it is often used as a justification to push around new immigrant groups. I think the answer is that it’s a bit of both. Still, let’s dwell on the positive aspects of this tricky, amorphous concept.

Rates of assimilation are down among today’s immigrants, which has caused no shortage of alarm among many Americans. In particular, a report from the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research suggested that Mexican immigrants have more trouble assimilating than other groups.

Now, this is not, as nativists claim, because Mexicans who come to America are too stubborn, arrogant, or just plain dumb to embrace the U.S.A. Nor is it because they have a large established community that just encourages them to replicate Mexico in American cities (which is also a popular talking point among social conservatives).

The first culprit for the low assimilation rate is this horrific recession. The author of the report, Jacob Vigdor, says America’s economic doldrums have increased “the likelihood that immigrants now in the United States will return home.” As such, “the incentive for immigrants to learn English has declined” since they believe that they will soon cross back over the border.

But economic matters aside, there is a stronger reason for the discrepancy between Mexicans and other immigrant groups. The report says the low rates of assimilation “may reflect the fact that the large numbers of Mexican immigrants residing in the United States illegally have few opportunities to advance themselves.”

I’m not sure what, if anything, the report suggests as a remedy. However, one conclusion comes to my mind. It seems to me that if undocumented people from Mexico are given an opportunity to assimilate — for example, giving them a pathway to citizenship — they are more likely to become integrated into American culture.

And if that is true, hunting down undocumented people in the futile hope of deporting all 12 million of them could backfire. That tactic would be the best way to assure that immigrants try to avoid blending in with American culture. If we say assimilation is truly important, perhaps it makes more sense to throw a lifeline to those who are already here, as even some conservatives have advocated.

Or we could keep doing what we’re doing now. But that doesn’t seem to be doing anyone — America, the undocumented, the concept of assimilation itself — any good.

Photo Credit: Fibonacci Blue