Assimilation Theories with the Focus on Indian Immigrants

Indian immigration really only started after the Immigration Act of 1965. The wave of diverse immigration post-1965 called for a revision of assimilation theories. Much of this was also due to the different economic and social contexts. The economy during the time was an hourglass economy that had lots of high-skill and low-wage jobs. Furthermore, these immigrants faced more persistent racial discrimination, leading to residential segregation and the formation of ethnic enclaves.

For most of the 20th century, the Classical Straight-Line) Assimilation theory was the most widely accepted. It assumed that diverse ethnic groups come together to form a shared culture for opportunities. Regardless of national origins, they abandon cultural and behavioral patterns to move towards assimilation. This framework worked for the European immigration waves between the 1880s and 1920s, but post-1960s, the Civil Rights Movement showed that African Americans had not been able to assimilate economically or socially and that staying in the United States longer produced worse outcomes in academics and behavior, the opposite of what this theory suggested. 

Then came the Multicultural Perspective matched the 1960s in how immigrant groups asserted their individual identities rather than assimilating completely. But this theory could not explain why some groups maintaining strong ethnic ties were more successful economically than others. It also did not answer the questions of why immigrant children did worse than their parents, something called “second generation decline.” This often occurred because immigrant children assimilated faster than their parents, becoming more vulnerable to peer pressures that promoted addictive and unhealthy behaviors. 

In the 1980s, the Structural Perspective developed which focused on the idea that assimilation was not possible because of institutional discrimination relating to one’s race and class. This theory generalized the immigrant experience too much and therefore could not explain the variation in the immigrant groups. Some individuals became successful with the same barriers that others were not able to overcome. 

Then came the Bumpy-Line Theory, or Gan’s Defense of Classical Assimilation, which argued that the Classical Assimilation Theory just needed some modifications. Herbert Gans argued that eventually assimilation would happen regardless of discrimination, economic issues, and cultural resistance. One major flaw of this theory was that it could not explain the growing “second generation decline” as just temporary, as the success difference between first-generation immigrants and second-generation immigrants was growing. 

Finally, Portes and Zhou in 1993 developed the Segmented Assimilation Theory, which better matched the diverse post-1965 immigration wave and explained the effects of immigration on the second generation better. It essentially argued that immigrant children do not follow the same path into American society but assimilate into different segments of it. This allows some to move upward, others to move downward, and some to maintain cultural ties for advancement. This path depends on factors like race, neighborhood, school, ethnic community presence, etc. This theory emphasized that many groups achieved upward mobility by maintaining ethnic networks and values, which served as a way to prevent negative influences on the children. This meant that assimilating to being American was not always a good thing, as for many disadvantaged immigrant communities, it meant that the children were influenced by poverty rather than the opportunities that came by being shielded with ethnic cultural ties.