Immigrants Into America

Integration of immigrants into American mainstream

Since the creation of the United States of America, immigrants from all backgrounds have sought refuge, a home and a life in this country of prosperity and opportunity. The opportunity of freedom to exercise natural rights is a large pull factor that causes many people to come to America. Others come because it is a country where one can prosper. Prosperity of people in a country, however, is a more challenging phenomenon to explain than opportunity. Immigrants seek economic, social and educational as well as cultural prosperity. The question of how to gain such prosperity is a difficult one to answer. Some immigrants come to America, cast off their past identity and attempt to find a new, less foreign one. By assimilating to American culture with this new identity, they start a long and treacherous journey to seek prosperity in a land vastly different from the one they once called home. Many will gain educational, economic and social prosperity, but never gain cultural prosperity. Assimilating to American culture so hastily, some immigrants are never able to explore and keep up with their cultural backgrounds. Their families grow up and became Americans, never cognizant of their given up ethnic identities. Those immigrants, however, who are able to gain cultural prosperity through the help of other immigrants of their respective background, become integrated into American society while keeping their ethnic identity. This is the sort of opportunity that the United States of America has provided new arrivals since its founding. Although many immigrants become overwhelmed with American culture and assimilate into it, those who contribute to a working ethnic society are able to dela...

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...in time, allow them to integrate into American mainstream. The phrase “American mainstream” is forever changing in meaning. Since its foundation, America has been a nation of immigrants. At first, immigrants came to America to find freedom: freedom of religion, freedom to live by one’s own culture while being under the protection of the government, etc. Later, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, citizens tried to push immigrants to become “Americanized”. In this case, the American mainstream comprised of people who were forced to disregard their ethnic origin and adapt to American culture. Now, the meaning of the American mainstream has once again changed. It is now comprised of people who strive to keep their ethnic origin, while forming bonding and bridging relationships with others to increase the social capital of their home, the United States of America.