Rethinking assimilation theory for a new era of immigration

Abstract

Assimilation has fallen into disrepute. In an essay tellingly entitled “Is Assimilation Dead?" Nathan Glazer (1993: 122) summarizes pithily the contemporary view: “Assimilation today is not a popular term.�? Glazer writes that he asked some Harvard students what they thought of the term and discovered that “the large majority had a negative reaction to it.�? The rejection of assimilation is not limited to students. While it was once the unquestioned organrzmg concept in sociological studies of ethnic relations, in recent decades assimilation has come to be viewed by social scientists as a worn-out theory which imposes ethnocentric and patronizing demands on minority peoples struggling [0 retain [heir cultural and ethnic integrity.