Immigration Integration

1108 Words3 Pages

In today’s America, all one has to do is look around to see the myriad of different kinds of people currently making up the population. Most of these people are descendants of immigrants, and quite a few may even be immigrants themselves. Understanding the role of immigrants in our society is important, especially when there are such differing views of whether they help or hurt us as a society. Integration programs have been put into place to attempt to transition immigrants into American society and help dispel fears of our country losing its identity, instead focusing on our shift to multiculturalism.

Most immigrants coming to America do so for one of four main reasons: education, employment, joining family, and some are refugees. While the first two are not completely comparable to the fourth, they tend to center around the idea that people are escaping a bad situation and trying to find a better one.(cooper,680-682)

When immigrants attempt to integrate into the society of their new homeland, there can be obstacles. Language barriers, unfamiliar customs, and religious and cultural differences can be present. Due to recognition of some of these barriers occurring in the past, several remedies have become available, such as integration programs. The U.S. government has increased the amount of money for their integration programs steadily since the early ‘90’s, and currently spends about 1432.5 million dollars a year specifically for this purpose.( (Fix, Zimmerman and Passe,38,43) Some of the non-governmental programs also receive private funds as well, thus increasing the support of these integration programs. Integration programs help with legal, financial, educational, and family services, among other things. The main ai...

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