In “Assessing Immigrant Assimilation: New Empirical and Theoretical Challenges,” Waters and Jimenez study the assimilation of immigrant groups through four major factors:  socioeconomic status, spatial concentration, language assimilation, and intermarriage.

One of the concepts they address is intermarriage saying that it is the ultimate sign of assimilation.  It has been found that there are higher rates of intermarriage with whites and Asians or Latinos than between white people and black people.  Also, native-born people have higher intermarriage rates than foreign-born individuals.  I can make a bit of a connection to my family with regards to this point.  My mother’s parents were born in Germany and moved to America and then got married.  On the other hand my mom, who was born here, married my father who is Italian. They point out that size of the immigrant group and other constraints affect if that immigrant group will marry outside of their nationality.  I think that studying intermarriage is a great way to explore assimilation because it is one of the most obvious forms.