Bridget Brantley

Should Minority Cultures Assimilate?

After reading a class article published by the New York Times, I found it alarming that "Historically, every immigrant group has jumped over American-born blacks."  African Americans have lived in America much longer than many of the immigrants who have arrived and made our nation their home.  As an  African American myself, I can’t help but ask the question whether American-born Blacks take advantage of the opportunities our country has to offer or are have we grown too complacent while immigrants come to America, work hard, and reap the benefits of this country? The minority narrative is not an immigrant story of voluntary participation and assimilation but one of involuntary contact and exploitation, resisting assimilation and creating an identity more or less separate from the mainstream.  African Americans and Native Americans share most of the same identifying factors of the minority culture accept involuntary contact.  They lost their identity immediately after they came to America. They were and stripped of any ancestral customs and given new names.  In the slave narrative of Olaudah Equiano, we see that he was given a new name, which was Gustavus Vassa. To resist meant that he would be punished. One factor of a dominant culture is it is selectively absorbent of other races as long as those races conform to their values and styles. When this does not happen, that particular individual or race may pose a threat to that race of people.  As a slave and now an African American Olaudah Equino quickly learned that refusing to assimilate resulted in consequences. This idea brings me to the question that I would like to ask.  Does resisting assimilation and creating an identity more or less separate from the mainstream hinder minority cultures?  

What is assimilation? Assimilation most accurately represents the point at which "individual" members of ethnic groups have shed the cultural, linguistic, behavioral, and identificational characteristics of their original group as well as disengaged from the associational, or structural, activities that have set them apart from others. Such persons may have lost most, or all, of their personal knowledge of their ethnic roots, or those roots had become diffused, merged with what has been absorbed from their new, principal societal context (Barkan).  Despite the inhumane treatment that Fredrick Douglas and Olaudah Equiano received from the slave owners because they were black and different, they worked hard to learn the ways of the dominant culture.  Conforming to the ways of another culture is not easy.  Both men provide examples of how assimilation worked in their favor.  In order to gain their freedom, they had to absorb the values and conform to a system they knew little about. In Chapter IV of Olaudah’s slave narrative, he writes, “That fear, however, which was the effect of my ignorance, wore away as I began to know them.  His “ignorance,” he says was his obstacle. In a 2005 article in Journal of Black Studies, the article explains how African Americans and Africans have mixed feelings about each other’s role in America.  He explains, “The fears and misconceptions have been perpetuated and continue to carry on the idea that although African people have the same beginnings, they are so different culturally, socially, and intellectually that they should be considered completely separate people. There is a continued rivalry for economic and social advantages among African Americans, and Africans in the United States” (Jackson, Cothran).   According to the U.S. Census Bureau as of 2000, nearly 2.4 million black immigrants lived in U.S. metropolitan areas, 42% of which entered in the last decade (Iceland, Scopilliti).

Each time I walk into a nail salon, I see a statue of Buddha, which is a representation of the Asian culture.  There’s a new shop on every corner today.  In Houston, Texas, there are numerous Asian communities such as Little Tokyo, Little Saigon, and China Town. Their cultural imprint is a part of our American landscape. In W.E.B. Dubois’s book, The Soul of Black Folk, he says that Asian Americans are considered the “good minority that seeks advancement through quiet diligence in study and work and by not making waves.”  As Black America migrated to the North looking for better opportunities, they integrated into society, but they encountered much opposition. Their cultural differences created a sense of "otherness" in terms of their reception by those who were living in the cities before the migration.  The potential for assimilation therefore rests on the presumption that hostile attitudes, discriminatory treatment, and conflict situations that would result in the rejection of persons with a particular ethnic ancestry have abated or disappeared (Barkan).

In 1917, racial pride was enormous in many African Americans.  Black leaders such as Marcus Garvey told his followers “to glorify their African heritage and revel in the beauty of their black skin” (The Great Migration).  In the 1960’s during the Civil Rights Movement, heroes such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X preached racial pride and equality.  The opportunities of education and prosperity awaited the minority culture.  Today, many are still waiting for the American Dream.  Max Weber’s analysis of the impact of social status on class standing carried this implication. Persons whose ethnic culture, identity, behaviors, social networks, and institutional affiliations are maintained experience personal costs inn\ lost opportunity for good jobs and high earnings (Reitz, Skylar). Can they learn something from immigrants who travel to America and leave behind their marked identity, so they become part of “the melting pot” bearing no marks of ethnic or tribal identification?

Works Cited

Barkan,Vecoli, Alba, and Olivier Zunz.  “Race, Religion, and Nationality in American Society: A Model of Ethnicity: From Contact to Assimilation.”  Journal of American Ethnic History. (JSTOR) Vol. 14, No. 2 (Winter, 1995), pp. 38-101.

Jackson and Mary Cothran.  “Black versus Black: The Relationships among African, African Americans, and African Carribean Persons.”  Journal of Black Studies. (JSTOR) Vol. 33, No. 5 (May, 2003), pp. 576-604.

Reitz and Sherrilyn Skylar.  “Culture, Race, and Economic Assimilation of Immigrants.” Sociological Forum. (JSTOR) Vol.12, No. 2 (Jun., 1997), pp. 233-277

Iceland and Melissa Scopilliti.  “Immigrant Residential Segregation in U.S. Metropolitan Areas, 1990-2000” Demography. (Academic Search Complete) Feb. 2008, Vol. 45 Issue 1, pp. 79-94.