Introduction
Integration is the process through which immigrants become a member of their new community and is a delicate and crucial transition from outsider to insider. It affects every aspect of the migrant experience, from schooling to housing, political engagement to civic engagement (Sackmann et al., 2017). Successful integration is difficult to assess, and few countries have succeeded at it, specifically modern ones.
Discussion
The procedure by which the traits of individuals of immigrant groups and host communities begin to resemble one another is called assimilation, also known as absorption or incorporation. The immigrant generation starts this process, which has financial and sociological implications, and it lasts into the second generation and beyond. The negative side of assimilation is that after immigration, a person must lose his national identity to assimilate; other theories provide for its preservation.
Amalgamation is a descriptive locution for the “melting pot” approach of integrating cultures. Many people have historically been concerned that the United States (US) may one day be a country without any clearly defined national heritage amid fears about intermarriage and subsequent interbreeding (Sackmann et al., 2017). Another difference between amalgamation and assimilation is that the former primarily implies a biological merging of host and migrant ethnic groups. Moreover, it is an equal process without clear major and minor populational actors, as in integration, assimilation, and accommodation.
The more recent notion of minority integration, known as accommodation, emphasizes many of the advantages mentioned in the “melting pot” theory. However, it does not employ any metaphor to explain the cultural process. The accommodation idea assumes that boundaries will be drawn between various civilizations. In contrast to the preceding two concepts, accommodation does not involve the loss of one’s national identity in favor of a new one. The difference with integration is that minorities do not become part of existing institutions but create their own in a new place.
Conclusion
It is challenging to identify which civilizational process among the ones discussed is taking place in America now. The historical leaders of the US have undertaken each of the mentioned ones. The result has been a vibrant multi-ethnic and multi-racial society where merging, coexistence, and separation are still active and continue to intensify (Parrillo, 2014). In my view, amalgamation has been happening in the US population.
References
Parrillo, V. N. (2014). Strangers to these shores: Race and ethnic relations in the United States. Pearson.
Sackmann, R, Peters, B., & Faist, T. (2017). Identity and integration: Migrants in Western Europe [eBook edition]. Routledge.