After reading Marcelo M. Suárez-Orozco’s piece, “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Assimilation but Were Afraid to Ask,” I was incredibly intrigued by his critique of the “clean break” assumption. I think his basic premise that our ideas of assimilation from previous waves of immigration can not necessarily apply to the effects of the wave of immigration experienced from the 1990s until today is a great piece of advice when thinking about immigration today. His examples that today immigration’s possible effects are different than they ever have been—widespread Spanish-speaking media, the new relevance of immigrants from Spanish-speaking countries for those nations’ politicians, and the ability of immigrants to stay connected to their homelands via new technologies—show that many immigrants to the United States are not assimilating like they used to. There is not as much of a “clean break” as was once assumed to be the case. Suárez-Orozco really does a great job demonstrating this point with these easily visible, relatable examples.
–Jonathan Eckman
