Summary concepts and applications

¶ … immigration concepts of multicultural group assimilation as presented by Roger Daniels and Van Den Berghe. It has 2 sources.

With the advent of the 19th century, America became the hub for migrants from all over the world. Although this process had initiated before this time but the concentration of immigrants increased as Europe experienced an increase in population. The pushing effect constituted of the increased in the level of unemployment, sanitation, food supply and disease controls which contributed to the motivation to migrate to the new land. Even though the influx of immigrants to America consisted of peasants and working class but nevertheless they did not anticipate remaining in the new land for a long time.

On the other hand the pull factors like employment, economic prosperity as well as the expansionary measures taken by the U.S. government during this period increased trade thereby attracting migrants from neighboring and far away countries like Asia as well as Latin countries. The charm of overseas jobs resulted in furthering industrialization as people from Africa, Mexico, Latin America, Arab countries, Russia and Far East Asian countries migrated to America for better economic prosperity [Daniels, 1990].

Part 2a

Cultural-ideological assimilation refers to the system of racial segregation or classification that allows the individuals to develop social relations. However, when migrants arrive a new place there are several factors that create barriers to assimilation. These may include language, religion, expectations and the ruling government. Dissimilarity in cultural and social institutions also tends to lose the identity of the individuals that pilfer cultural barriers between the host culture and that of the migrants. [Daniels, 1990].

Part 2b

Among the most important factors that constitute the harmonious acceptance in assimilation is perhaps the racial groups ability to adapt to the circumstances to avail market opportunities. There are often certain barriers to assimilation where economic gain is concerned where the perceived notion of economic gain is different from the occupational activities of the original land. Impersonal factors, skills inherent and experience with the internal ethic groups can create or impair the chances for assimilation. [Daniels, 1990].

Part 2c

Institutional completeness as well as community organizations play an important role in enabling ethnic groups to blend in to the new environment. Barriers however can be created if the process of manifestation of power is created to discourage assimilation. For example mechanisms like nationalism, integrity rights, and independence of groups and establishment of political rights all contribute to hindrance. [Daniels, 1990].

Part 3

Despite the above factors that contributed to assimilation, it has been observed that culturally diversified groups in America have been able to mingle, adapt and exist in a harmonious environment where the groups each created boundaries for its community and yet become participants of the American society without having to deal with the association related to their community. For this reason they have been successful in addressing conflict resolution as each ethnic group like the Asian and the Latinos understand realize the importance of family, blood relations, community relations and social ideology. Such understanding dissipates any cultural differences that are superficial. However, assimilation of this nature does not happen over night and not without struggle between the ethnic groups. Barriers of assimilation often allow the groups to create barriers but these are easily dissolved. In fact it is the external environment and factors that contribute to the barriers that are irreplaceable. For example the existing political system that does not allow for ethnic groups to participate and assume authority; neither does the Constitution make provisions for the newly accultered groups so as to allow them to have more freedom in expressing their needs politically. Combined with the economic setback of skill requirements along with community relation, the ethnic groups are hindered from progress. [Daniels, 1990].

Part 4

Van den Berghe in this book The Ethnic Phenomenon compares the cultural groups, their acculturation patterns and assimilate as attributed to the biological factor of hegemony of genes. According to him human beings and their community groups all largely depend on the biological link of individuals. Those who are dominating tend to oust those who are weaker. Thus groups may or not be similar; they may have the gravitation to assimilate regardless of their ethnicity and according to him Berghe common genes of nepotism are the basis of divisions. He States: "To maximize their reproduction, genes in program organisms to do two things: successfully compete against, and thereby contribute to the reproduction of organisms that carry alternative alleles of the genes in question, and successfully cooperate with (and thereby contribute to the reproduction of) organisms that share the same allele of the genes. In simpler terms, the degree of cooperation between organisms can be expected to be a direct function of the proportion of the genes they share: conversely, the degree of conflict between them is an inverse function of the proportion of shared genes."[van den Berghe,1981, p.7]. Given this view, one can deduce that Van den Berghe's concept of cultural assimilation is limited in its scope as it limits the external factors that usually constitute of the cultural barriers. He refers to kinship as a commonality that supports the behaviors of ethnic groups and how they adapt to one another's hegemony. However, his concept does not offer the explanation of these sociological factors that would allow one to understand why ethnic groups despite their hegemonic reproduction capacity can successfully compete against one another and remain cooperative in threatening circumstances. Whereas, in established multicultural environment such as those in America identify external sociological factors as the key influencing drivers of ethnic group assimilation. The challenge is to assimilate despite the conflicting factors.

Thus, from the sociobiological context it does not justify the rationale to say that multicultural groups migrate because of the demand of their genes; it is not true to explain why certain groups dominate the others on the basis of kinship yet at the same time can be ousted from the society.

Part 5