Jonah Greebel

While reading Orozco’s piece, “Everything About Assimilation,” I became interested in his discussion of the difficulties of assimilation for second generation Americans, the progeny of the initial wave of newcomers.  Orozco made the point, backing it up with cited studies, that immigrant parents desire for their children to assimilate in ways that benefit them economically, but more often than not, resist assimilating to sociocultural norms.  These include drug culture, promiscuity, and other teenage mores.  While the actions I have just listed are not actions I recommend, I still find it counterintuitive to the immersion process to resist cultural absorption.  This does not come at the cost of your ancestral culture, but rather, these new values should be added or at least understood if these children of immigrants are to have any hope of ascending the American hierarchy.