"Making it Home: How Immigrants Are Redefining Incorporation, Assimilation & Identity"

Monday, July 15th, 2019

For the June edition of the TR Site Speaker Nite series, we had the pleasure to welcome Dr. Sergio Garcia-Rios, Assistant Professor of Government and Latina/o Studies at Cornell University. His talk, Making it Home: How Immigrants are Redefining Incorporation, Assimilation and Identity, focused on the process by which immigrants in America have developed a method of assimilation which involves what he calls “Identity Portfolios.” These portfolios allow immigrants to preserve their cultural identity and redefine it in connection to the American identity.  

American identity is a topic of fierce debate. Since our nation's conception arguments have erupted as to whom is included as American. Race, religion, ethnicity, culture, and more have all been used to define “American”. But, what of those people who decide to be an American and something more? Can one be American and still have an affinity for another land and its people? When a people and their culture are incorporated in American life, what is included and what is left behind? Using the Latino community as an example, Dr. Garcia-Rios”s work tries to answer these questions and more. 

How Latino immigrants incorporate into the American identity was the focus of Garcia-Rios’s discussion. For some, Latino immigrants present a challenge to the American identity. There is a belief that Latinos are not integrating into American society to the same degree that past generations of immigrants have. Statistics of low inter-ethnic marriages, education levels, economic levels, and English proficiency are used to support this claim. Far more damning is the low self identification among Latinos as American.  (Watch this section of the recording for Dr. Garcia-Rios’s full discussion.)

This data has lead scholars and scientists to conclude that Latinos won't assimilate.  Samuel Huntington, an American political scientist and author of Who Are We?: The Challenges to America’s National Identity (2004),has referred to this as the "Latino Challenge." He suggests that Latinos are incapable or unwilling to integrate. Huntington argues this could lead to the development of an America with two distinct identities: one American, the other Latino. Alternatively, according to Huntington, the Latino identity could replace the American identity in large swaths of the country altogether. (Watch this section of the recording for more detail.)

Garcia-Rios argues against Huntington's assumptions and proposes his "Identity Portfolio" as an answer to the “Latino Challenge.” A premise of Huntington's conclusion is that immigrants can only have one identity. Garcia-Rios argues against this simplistic view. Instead, he says, immigrants can have many fluid identities.

According to Garcia-Rios, immigrant identities are fluid yet resilient. They are influenced by many situational agents -- positive and negative -- both from someone’s home country and their host country. Positive factors, also called receptive agents, are accepted to fulfill that sense of belonging to an identity. Conversely, non-receptive agents, are the responses to negative perceptions or factors in order to maintain or build that sense of belonging. As a result of these agents, immigrants create multiple identities. The identification fluctuates throughout immigrants’ lives. This is not a linear process. A wide range of factors can impact this process. Examining the expression of these identities is the focus of Garcia-Rios's work.  (Watch this section of the recording for more detail.)

Through his own research Garcia-Rios found a pattern. First, immigrants express a strong connection with the identity of their home country.  For example, a recent immigrant from Mexico is likely to identify strongly as a Mexican. As time passes, there is an uptick in the association with the American Identity and a Pan-ethnic identity, while ethnic identity begins to wane. Following up on the previous example, the same immigrant from Mexico is -- over time -- less likely to identify as Mexican and more likely to identify as American and/or Latino.  Yet, as time progresses, expression of the original ethnic (Mexican, in the provided example) identity returns. This pattern emerges in long-term generational studies, as well. Notably, however, it does not necessarily coincide with a reduction of American identity. (Watch this section of the video for more information.)

Dr. Garcia-Rios used a series of graphs and models to visualize this trend in the data. Further, he was able to develop an equation that predicts such trends and accounts for several variables (discussed in the video, here). While further data needs to be collected, several preliminary conclusions can be drawn from the work that has been done to date: (1) Latinos from various countries are adopting the American identity; (2) at the same time, they are not letting go of their ethnic and cultural identities. 

Based on these findings Latinos are not outliers, but a continuation of a long tradition of immigrants, who came to this country and enriched its identity and culture with their own. 

-- Travis Ratka, Public Programming Assistant

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