Shrinking; This Concept Is an Oft-Cited One

¶ … shrinking; this concept is an oft-cited one in discussing international relations, the blinding speed of worldwide communication, and global travel and migration. Ideas like moving to another nation or even another continent are significantly more feasible today than they would have been even half a century ago. This closeness of various linguistic, ethnic, and cultural groups has created an urgent need for a better understanding of assimilation among these varied groups.

Cultural assimilation has a broad definition due to the broad nature of "culture;" it can refer to an actual intermixing of races and "the genetic dissolution" of a certain group; it can also refer solely to more immediately changeable concepts such as language, religious belief, familial relations, and other traditions of a certain ethnic or societal group (Moran 2005, p. 169). In today's globalized society, different groups are encountering one another with increasing frequency, significantly altering the importance of these types of assimilation and inter-group relations. For purposes of this essay, only the idea of assimilating societal practices (i.e. language, traditions, etc.) will be addressed.

Assimilation may be seen as an attempt by a minority group to "fit in" to the dominant cultural model; it is also utilized by migrant and diasporic groups in an effort to better function in their new societies. Language is the most obvious factor in these assimilation experiences; the large Hispanic population in the United States is almost entirely assimilated in terms of language -- over 80% of these individuals speak English (Grow 2004). This large group of migrants has assimilated their language skills to that of their "new" environment so as to better work, socialize, and live in a nation where their native tongue is not the language of choice for a majority of the inhabitants. Another study of language as an assimilating factor among immigrants to the United States found that most (88%) immigrant children preferred English to their native tongues (Davidson 1998). This assimilation is a significant influence on the family and social personalities of these children as they become more incorporated into life in their new culture. "The force of linguistic assimilation was incontrovertible" in studying the overall assimilation of these immigrant groups (ibid.).

The debate regarding cultural assimilation focuses not on what the phenomenon is, but instead what it means for the existence of minority cultures in a global society. Is the type of linguistic assimilation in the above example a death knoll for bilingual immigrants, or successive generations of immigrants? Is it possible for alternate languages and cultures continue to exist in a nation or region where the dominant social mores and language are different from the original traditions of a group? Ideally, this alteration of culture would be "a positive attempt by groups to become more at home in new surroundings and to integrate into the host society" (Karlson 2004, p. 131).

Detractors of this assimilation and blending of cultures say that it results in the loss of the original culture and that it is possibly only an attempt by the minority group to avoid racism and discrimination by the majority of the new society (Karlson 2004, p. 131). Through this lens, assimilation to the majority culture, society, and language may only be a negative for the original culture. However, some scholars have noted that assimilation is not "a zero sum model, in which the acculturation of immigrants and their children involved the gradual replacement of their ethnic culture" (Thompson 2002, p. 416). These scholars believe that a melding of one group's original culture from their area of origin with the dominant culture of their new nation or region is possible without becoming a detriment to either culture, and perhaps strengthening both cultures.

The truth regarding cultural assimilation lies somewhere between these two extremes. Assimilation with regard to language, traditions, and social mores is most definitely a positive factor in easing the transition of immigrants to a new society; one author has noted that, as opposed to previous centuries in which different groups came into contact only when at war or in the context of conflict, today's "small world" has resulted in and encouraged interactions between various groups (Stepukonis 2003). These interactions increase the depth of individual cultures by emphasizing the important aspects of each to its own identity -- an emphasis on family and religion in one culture, for example, or a history and separate style of music and literature in another.