I found the article Becoming American/Becoming New Yorkers.. particularly interesting because it sought to express a more realistic approach to viewing immigrant assimilation in America, specifically in New York City. As mentioned in the article, the dominant theory is limited in the sense that it tries to break down assimilation, using an unsophisticated model, into either incorporation with the native white elite, or retention of culture with nonwhite minorities. It argues that second generation immigrants who remain in the economic or social niches of their parents, “casting their lots with America’s minority groups,” will experience downward mobility and be unsuccessful. The authors first point out that the groups are not so “black and white;” they can’t be separated into “immigrants” or “middle Americans.” Rather, the second generation immigrant is creating a new culture of its own; multicultural groups who exchange ideas and behaviors. Not only are their successes not due to assimilation as viewed by the segmented theory, but their failures cannot be generalized to a breakdown of values (in response to a rebellious peer culture that rejects success). The article shows this by comparing arrest rates, and then pointing out that certain members of minority groups, while having similar, or even lower arrest rates than others, might not have the ability to recover like other groups, specifically white youths.
On a personal level, I feel that this analysis provides a much more optimistic view of immigration and assimilation in American society. It characterizes “New Yorker” differently than I had previously seen it, where the term now refers to an identity different than a second generation immigrant’s [parent’s] country of origin, as well as that of what one might consider “mainstream American.”
