Immigration In The US - Essay Example

?Describe the differences and similarities between assimilation, ethnic pluralism, and transnationalism for immigrants. Which do you think is the best way for immigrants to adapt to the host society? Assimilation refers to erasure of personal culture to make room for host (majority) culture through removal of ethnic origins. A connected phenomenon is acculturation involving the adoption of outward manifestations of the host culture such as clothing, language but not organised religion. On the other hand structural assimilation refers to movement into cultural clubs and groups e.g. intermarriage. In contrast identificational assimilation implies development of people hood based on the host society alone. The cultural pot concept delineates biological and cultural fusion wile “straight line assimilation” assumes that each subsequent generation moves farther away from the ethnic “ground zero”. However assimilation fails to recognise that American culture is highly mixed up and non-homogenous and is continually evolving. The constant acculturation causes a hybrid culture as both minority and majority culture traits are fused together while assimilation assumes a majority static culture that has to be adopted by smaller ethnic groups but discounts the influence of small ethnic groups on the majority culture. Pluralism encourages group diversity along with maintenance of group boundaries and can be seen as opposite to assimilation. Structural pluralism holds that segregated communities exist within the larger cultures who conduct social relations internally through localised institutions. In contrast, liberal pluralism allows the individual to choose how pluralist one wants to be such as many people associate with ethnic traits and practices generations after immigration. The resistance by Euro-Americans is available as evidence of pluralism such as by marriage within local groups only. Transnationalism is the creation of combined plural civic and political memberships, economic involvements, social networks and cultural identities which link people and institutions in more than one diverse nation state in a multilayered pattern. Immigration in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century’s created a back and forth movement of immigrants who helped move cultural values across borders through effective means of communication and transport. Such immigrants developed trans-local boundaries in order to protect the ideas of citizenship and belonging to their mother countries. Changes in the early twentieth century ensured that immigrants developed a plural identity in America and their mother state’s without fear of opposition. The present day transnationalism is far more diverse and encompasses private and public spheres of operation. Second generations of transnational immigrants display mobility in parental ethnic groups as well as in America society. The best method for immigrants to adapt to the host society derives through a combination of pluralism and transnationalism. Immigrants cannot be expected to revoke their ethnic, cultural and religious ties to the mother country within a few short years of arrival in the host country. Instead the immigrants hold onto their identities in the form of transnatinoalism while the host society has to display pluralism in order to make the immigrants more accepted in society. The use of assimilation would on the other hand lead to friction between immigrants and host societies as a revocation of values is deemed necessary for cultural integration. Do women have more to gain or more to lose from migration (for instance, compared to men)? You can think about this issue in terms of the causes of migration, the relative difficulty/ease of migrating for women, the occupational and economic status of women migrants in the host society, or the impact of migration on women’s social status within the family/household. Women like men stand to gain and lose at the same time due to immigration but their losses are considerably greater than those experienced by men. Women emigrating abroad are often pushed because their meager resources in the parent country are not enough to supplement the family’s income. In most cases, women emigrate abroad as singles rather than as complete families because of the associated costs of rearing a family in a more expensive community. When single females immigrate into other nations to find work, they are being relied upon by employers to source cheap and docile labor. Women workers are generally easier to control and manipulate by employers are offer less resistance than men through means such as collective bargaining and strikes. Another aspect is that women as labor are cheaper to recruit and employ than men. This makes women labor particularly attractive to a large segment of people sponsoring females for housework and nannies as well as for labor in industrial enterprises. For example, garments factories in the Marianas chose to employ more immigrant Chinese women than men because they were cheaper and easier to control as labor. Consequently women immigrants are discriminated against in comparison to their male counterparts when it comes to compensation and manipulation by the employer. Another aspect of this problem emerges when single females immigrate abroad and find it hard to find suitable partners for marriage or long term relationships. The lack of emotional fulfillment puts them at greater risk for developing emotional and attachment problems including a developed hate for men. On the other hand, when female immigrants with families and children immigrate they are not in a capacity to bring their children along. The added expense of rearing children in a foreign more expensive country undermines the initial goal to work abroad and save some money to eventually retire to the parent country. This in turn leads to broken marriages as the male partners are susceptible to adultery in order to deal with their sexual needs. Moreover the children are prone to suffer as well as they lack direct parental care and consultation. At the end of the day, the family might be able to afford greater social mobility because of the money they have earned but not a cohesive family because of a starvation of time. The more advanced nations that most immigrant women workers work in are able to give them greater rights as human beings but the expense of legal fees and a general fear of the law keep them from realizing their inalienable rights. It is not uncommon to find immigrant working females who are beaten up and otherwise abused by their male partners or by other patriarchs in the family. In these terms, the women have nearly the same status that she had in her home country. Women are able to assert themselves more independently given that their income is being pooled and that they support the family. However such developments often occur when a women is mature enough to realize that she can resist the patriarchal domination in the family. Another darker aspect of female immigrants is the burgeoning sex trade that thrives on cheap immigrants to make it possible. Immigrant women are lured in as industrial workers, house hold help etc. but are then forced into prostitution in foreign countries by potential employers. Most women immigrants in such situations are not able to resist the violence and abuse inflicted upon them. Read More