Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright once said, “As a leader, you have to have the ability to assimilate new information and understand that there might be a different view.” The statement seems simple enough, but in order to fully appreciate it, an understanding of a fairly uncommon word is required. This word is assimilation. Though at first glance assimilation doesn’t appear to be too daunting a term, its diverse definitions play a significant role in more domains than many would initially anticipate.
The word assimilation has many different meanings. Its interpretations range from the digesting of nutrients to the transfer of similar sounds. When sifting through the various definitions, however, there is one concept that always
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seems to stand out. No matter what the source is or how it’s worded, there is almost always a reference to cultural groups. Whether it’s the acceptance of a group or the alteration of it, the customs of contrasting cultures continuously come up. One such definition, according to the AudioEnglish.org dictionary, based on WordNet 2.1 and supported by Princeton University, states assimilation is “the social process of absorbing one cultural group into harmony with another.” Kristyn Hammond, a college composition professor in the Texas A&M school system, describes in her eHow article “Types of Assimilation” published on September 06, 2014, that as cultures mix and evolve, there is a “transition of cultural traits, language acquisition and cultural identities from each group to the other.” AudioEnlgish.org also relates terms such as Americanization and Westernization to assimilation, but unfortunately, these processes aren’t always as harmonious as the definition suggests. Hammond states later in her article that, “While assimilation can be a brutal and violent condition of forced integration, it can also be a peaceful combination of cultures.” Unfortunately, in the American experience, there are more examples of oppressive enterprises than peaceful ones. This can be seen throughout our history, but one instance many people are familiar with is the treatment of the Native Americans in the 1800’s and 1900’s. According to the Native American Public Telecommunications article “Assimilation, Relocation, Genocide,” published in September of 2006, the introductory actions instituted to allow the cultures to coexist usually involved the not so voluntary incorporation of the Indians into American society. Basically, they were stripped of their own heritage in the hopes they could be “civilized” or “Americanized.” With the aid of boarding schools and government relocation programs, the Americans destroyed their enemy by demolishing the way of life that had dared stand in the way of progress. Scenarios such as this give the word assimilation a cruel and cold connotation, but thankfully, there are other concepts connected to this term. Along with its strong cultural ties, there is a prominent psychological aspect to assimilation.
This component can be accredited to psychologist Jean Piaget. As he presented it, assimilation is the use of one’s general knowledge to a specific experience. By molding previous experiences with new understanding, one can create a new interpretation of belief. This technique tends to be subjective, due to the fact that human nature often keeps with the old and makes new experiences mold to existing ones. One can assimilate all of their newfound beliefs, or just those with which they are most attuned to. In the case that a person's perspective radically veers from his or her original reasoning, it is no longer assimilation. Instead, it is refereed to as accommodation, Piaget's second method of comprehending information. Like these doctrines, assimilation can also be subdivided into smaller, individualized …show more content…
sets. Along with the various definitions, there are several specific types of assimilation.
Each type is connected to societies or groups of people living in close proximity, and frequently involves the molding of speech, beliefs, or customs. While some types focus on a certain subject, such as language assimilation, most are more complex. One such type is reciprocal assimilation, where more than one social group comes together under a common value. A very relatable example can be found in the aftermath of the 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Center. After this savage assault on our society, people of all ages, background, and ethnicity shared the same disgust and despair toward the world of terrorism. This type of assimilation is closely related to identificational assimilation which, as described by Professor Kristyn Hammond, “refers to the willingness of multiple social groups to self-identify --choose to identify-- with a unified identity.” This can be seen when more than one societal group unites under a commonality; it is partially how proud and patriotic terms like “Americans” came to be. Though these subsets stem from somewhat similar subjects, other branches of assimilation handle much different
issues. The last two main categories of assimilation can both be seen within the political sphere. Civic assimilation incorporates a mutual agreement or disagreement regarding governmental policies. It is often exhibited with political parties, when affiliations gather together based on specific civic opinions. Civic assimilation isn't the only type that deals heavily in politics though. From the 1960's to the 1990's, women assembled to have equal rights in their society. This was an example of structural assimilation that, as Hammond says, is the consolidation of one set of people with a primary population by means of “social customs, institutions, and social groups.” The dominant group must welcome the new culture as equals with the same privileges and freedoms in order to be successful, regardless of how much time must to be taken to accomplish this credo. It should be clear now that assimilation plays a part in more places than we’d expect. In many ways, had plagued our past, remains in our present, and will persist into our future. Whether it’s through psychology or a combination of cultures, assimilation is sure to survive in some form or another. So it is up to us, then, to ensure that assimilation is an asset to our society, rather than an albatross. In a world as diversified as ours, we must, just as Madeleine Albright said, be aware of all the information around us, and be able to accept outlooks other than our own.
Back to the American history, "assimilation" policy was introduced to the Native Americans during the earliest colonial times. During that time, all American Indians must either adopt the White's lifestyles or perish. With the declaration of the Dawes Act, a goal of destroying all tribal structure and their communal life were summoned. Tribal lands were divided among natives and the Westerners, leaving the natives, a land surrounded by the foreigners. With such acts, the American Indians were slowly assimilated into the White's culture and without their own people around them, they will have to communicate with the Westerners with their language instead of their indigenous languages; they ...
There has been many discussions about how people try to fit in society, whether it is for music, interests in subjects, or even trying to fit in a specific culture. Groups and individuals seems to have a distinction among each other when it comes down to fitting in society and how they differ and have tensions among each other to conform to social norms. In “Making Conversation” and “The Primacy of Practice” by Kwame Anthony Appiah discusses how all cultures have similarities and differences but sometimes those differences are so different that they can not connect to another nation. Manuel Munoz in “Leave Your Name at the Border” argues how immigrants in a city are forced to act more societal and how it typically affects the diversity in
Assimilation is the idea of mixing culture and knowledge of one's group with another's group. This was clear that work needed to be done by the fact
276). Curtin’s Coculturation (2010) combats this hegemonic discourse by stating, “everyone is continually engaged in social and political processes of identification” (p. 283). Thus, one’s identity can consist of multiple cultures and they can in fact coincide. The idea that one group “belongs” in a particular imagined community is a myth, there is no single response or adaption. The theory of Coculturation ultimately accommodates to a more realistic approach to cultural adjustment where a newcomer can adopt some behavior of the host culture while still maintaining the conciliatory and subconscious aspects of their native
Most often it is when a person is more than one racial identity. This makes people socially identify with a particular race. The text discusses “immigration exposition and the desire to claim ones heritage in full measure , as well as greater openness to intimate unions across racial an ethnic lines “multiracial” is now identity classifications. I know the Garcia daughters are full Dominican but the girls struggled with their race several times. They felt as if they were more American then Dominican. They felt more comfortable speaking the English language then their own native Spanish language. The Garcia daughters would classify them self as Americans more so then
For starters, schemas can be defined as the basic building block intelligent behavior or a way of organizing knowledge. (MacLeod 2015) Moving forward, assimilation is simply using existing knowledge and applying it to new information. It’s like using skills from one experience and using that to help figure out a newer and similar encounter. Accommodation is slightly different, this is when people adjust their schemas to new information rather than using previous knowledge to do things. You can think of it as rethinking old strategies when there’s a new challenge that presents
Assimilation is when you take new information or experiences and include them into your existing perceptions and understandings. This means that when you have new information you make sense of it from the information you already had. Accommodation is when you take new information and alter or even change the existing information you had. For example, say you have a friend who you have always known to be super nice to everyone, and one day you see her yelling and being mean to someone in the hallway. If you were to use the assimilation process, you could forgive the girls behavior, believing she might of just had a bad day. If you were to use accommodation, you might change your opinion on the girl and think maybe she isn't as nice as you thought she
Assimilation means adapting to a society or culture by learning there ways of life. In this case, for the immigrants based in the United States, assimilation is the key to being accepted as an American. In the early 1960s the U.S had formed strategies that limited the amount of immigrants coming into the country; this mostly favored the Europeans from the North. Later, the Immigration and Nationality Act was approved and this allowed more Asians, Africans and Latin Americans into the U.S. this resulted to an increase in influx of both illegal and legal immigrants allowed in the country.
...namic Model of Cultural Assimilation (2002): n. pag. Bc.edu. Boston College, Nov. 2002. Web. 20 Nov. 2013. .
Many people in America want to assimilate to the U.S. because they think that being American is a better option. People such as the Italians in the 1870s tried to assimilate in order to become an American to not become an enemy in the U.S. Also, the Mexicans today are constantly coming to the U.S. to have a better life because they know being American is the best solution for their problems at home. What assimilation mean is when a person leaves one’s own culture to join a different culture the person wants to be. For the purpose of this essay, an American is a person who has commitment to succeed in what one wants, able to speak english, to love the pop culture in the U.S. at the time one is living such as the hit songs, games, T.V. shows, etc. but not to other cultures, and be a citizen in America. People throughout history must assimilate to become a true American
...accomplished the assimilation into one race, it consists of people sharing a similar identity. In the words of Richard Rodriguez, ?We are gathered together-but as individuals?we stand together, alone,? thus people will assimilate but as individual ?Americans?.
2016, p. 49). During assimilation a person uses an existing scheme to understand a new experience (Hoffnung et al. 2016, p. 49) meaning the new concept is adjusted under their current understanding. An example Lilienfeld et al. (2015) use states that if a child believes the earth is flat and learns it is round they may assimilate this idea by picturing a flat disk such as a coin; this allows them to absorb the new information without changing their current viewpoint. Whereas accommodation is the adjustment of existing schemata when it cannot fit into a new concept (Hoffnung et al. 2016, p. 49) therefore accommodation creates a change in a child’s original conception of that idea (Lilienfeld et al. 2015, p. 409). Both processes are essential to the growth and development of a person’s cognition (Wadsworth, 1989, p. 19), their cooperation is known as adaptation and according to Piaget without development would not occur (Hoffnung et al. 2016, p.
Piaget had a phrase that said “Assimilation and Accommodation lead to Adaptation.” Assimilation is when a person fits his or her external information in with what he or she already knows. The change is external in this case. Accommodation is the exact opposite. This is when you have to modify what you already know to make some sense out of the external information. The change is internal. A person must use both of these tactics in order to adapt to a situation (external or internal) correctly and have a regulated equilibrium.
Assimilation, different from accommodation, implied that the “outsider” group actually came to accept and internalise the values and culture of the native group which usually shows up at second generation of immigrants. They grow up with two different cultures and they will have to face the difference between these cultures and form their own opinion and tendency which may eventually coming out a behavior stander of the combination of two cultures. People in this period will have more individual understanding because they have chance to choose they life they want to live. It also means this period is not only the most important time for assimilation but also the most struggling time. Just as what Eric’s mentioned in “Notes of a Native Speaker”, “Being an ABC certainly affected me another way. It made me feel like something of a greenhorn, a social immigrant”. Most offsprings of immigrants will have the same confusion because they get their early education from their parents, but after experiencing social contacts(generally after they go to school), a new sense of value from the society will refresh their brains. Some people says that these kids are blessed because they have chance to aware two cultures and get benefits from both, but some would say they are cursed to live in a life like this because they have to face so many confusions in a young age. What
Multiculturalism vs Assimilation America is a place where many cultures and races co-exist, so there are many different opinions and beliefs. Of course there is bound to be tension and misunderstandings, which unfortunately escalates (in some cases) into violence that we hear about in the media. So what is the solution? Should we all assimilate to one standard or should we recognize our individual cultures and consider ourselves multicultural? The answer is not an easy one to define.