The Conflicts of Immigrant Assimilation
Immigration is an exciting yet long process. It’s exciting because you get to explore the different side of the world. It’s a major turn in your life because learning another lifestyle and adapting to a new society is stressful. There are countless immigrants in all around the world. They face similar situations every day. Immigrants try to assimilate quickly and fit in with everyone else, however; it might not be as easy and might encounter some conflicts. Some conflicts that an immigrant may encounter during his/her process of assimilation are facing confused identities, discrimination, and getting rejected by their home cultures. Life as an immigrant have numerous obstacles to overcome in the process of assimilation. One of them is facing the reality of discrimination. When you immigrate to another country with another language, you wouldn’t be able to speak the language very well or at all. Some get discriminated all the time because of their culture, beliefs, and the way they are. This makes assimilation harder for them because they are looked down on and not being able to join the social circle. They wouldn’t be able to connect with the Americanized. Like Jose Vargas, a famous undocumented immigrant writer, also got discriminated after being found out that he is an ‘illegal’ alien. People asked him questions and even rudely said, “Well, you should get your ass home, then” (Vargas, 2012, P.1). This made Vargas’ ability to assimilate because his undocumented status changed his image. Now, people think differently of him just because he was not born in the US. Another example would be in the article, “Invisible Men”, claims that another way of mistreatment is their pay. The illegal immigrants are underpaid because of their status. Their employers looks down on them since they are not in the US legally and takes this chance to take advantage of them. This also makes it harder for them to assimilate because they feel unequal compared to other people since they don’t even get paid minimum wage.
Not just Jose Vargas, but countless immigrants face the same situations every day, whether it be getting confronted, receiving unpleasant looks, or even just small gestures that symbolize their unacceptance towards immigrants. Unacceptance and discrimination makes it harder for immigrants to assimilate because the immigrants feel unwelcomed and a sense of displeasure, rather than feeling like home and comfortable with letting themselves out and have the confidence to achieve their goals. Besides discrimination, immigrants have internal conflict about their identity and home culture. After they get settled down in their new society, some immigrants start developing the new ways and culture. However, their families and fellow people with same ethnicity backgrounds may not agree with them. In “Of Cholos and Surfers”, Jack Lopez, writes about when he was small and his experiences of being an immigrant. He emigrated from Mexico to the United States when he was very young, so he adopted to the American ways and wanted to be a surfer, which is a symbol of white culture and privilege. However, one day, Jack stumbled upon a “cholo” and wanted to initiate a fight because Jack was dressed as a surfer. At the end, the fight never happened because Jack claimed that he was Mexican (Lopez, 2005, P. 14-15). This shows that a lot of people with the same ethnicity background sometimes discriminate the immigrants’ identity and how they identify themselves. This gives conflict and pressure to the immigrant because they want to adopt to the American ways but at the same
