Migrant-Host Relationships
Migrant-Host Relationships
• The relationships between immigrants and their hosts are very
complex, and understanding these relationships requires dialectical
approach.
• The two major reasons for migration involve economic and/or
noneconomic reasons and complex push-pull (dialectical)factors.
•
The host may cause the immigrants to feel simultaneously
accepted and rejected, privileged and disadvantaged, and
relationships may be both active and motionless.
• There are five types of relationships that structures relationship of
migrants and host and their attitude toward each other’s cultures,
assimilation, separation, integration, marginalization, and culture
hybridity.
Migrant-Host Relationships
Migrants Devalue
Own/Minority
Culture
Migrants Value
Host/ Majority
Culture
Migrants Devalue
Host/Majority
Culture
Assimilation
Marginalization
Hybridity
Migrants Value
Own/Minority
Culture
Integration
Separation
Assimilation
 Assimilation is a type of cultural adaptation in which an individual gives up
his or her own cultural heritage and adopts the mainstream culture
identity.
 Melting pot archetypal.
 Central focus is not on retaining one’s cultural heritage.
 Assimilation can be caused by ethnic and/or racial discrimination, society’s
pressure, maintaining relationships with other groups in the new culture.
 “…assimilation and melting-pot ideologies: we permit members of other
cultures to immigrate, but require they adopt some (melting pot) or all
(strict assimilation) features of our cultural template, in any event the
central ones of individual autonomy and freedom” (Bennett, 2011).
Separation
• There are two forms of
separation.
• The first form is separation which
is a type of cultural adaptation in
which an individual retains his or
her original culture while
interacting minimally with other
groups.
• Many strict religious groups
actively resist the influence of
dominant society, such as Amish,
Muslim, Buddhism, and Mormon.
• In this picture these Indian
women are learning English but
keeping their own culture
identity.
Segregation
 The second form of
separation.
 Segregation is the policy
or practice of compelling
groups to live apart from
each other.
 This picture represents
the segregation on a bus
when white people sat
in the front and African
Americans sat in the
back. This was a forced
segregation.
Integration
• Integration occurs when
migrants have an interest
both in maintaining their
original culture and
language and in having daily
interactions with other
groups.
• In this picture two people
with two different cultures
joined together to create a
family that will be able to
maintain the culture and
language of both parents.
Marginalization
• Marginalization occurs when individuals or
groups express little interest in maintaining
cultural ties with either the dominant culture
or the migrant culture.
• “As Asian Americans are living within two
cultures, they may find themselves ‘on the
margins of each but a member of
neither’”(Kim, 2006).
Cultural Hybridity
• Cultural hybridity occurs when migrants often
combine all four types of relating to the host
society.
• Cultural hybridity often occurs in employment
(assimilation), bilingualism (integration),
different culture marriages (seperation).
• Not a melting pot society, instead each groups
blends together their own culture and other
cultures.
Test Questions
1. True or False: Assimilation occurs when the individual
does not want to maintain an isolated cultural identity but
wants to maintain relationships with other groups in the
new culture.
2. Marginalization occurs when
a)
b)
c)
d)
Migrants have an interest both in maintaining their original
culture and having daily interaction with other groups.
An individual expresses little interest in maintaing cultural ties
with either the dominant culture or the migrant culture.
Migrants and their families combine all four types of relating
to the host society.
Migrants choose to retain their original culture and avoid
interaction with other groups.
References
• Bennett, J. (2011). Assimilation & The
Persistence of Culture. The New
Criterion, 29(5), 29.
• Kim, S.Y., Gonzales, N.A., Stroh, K., & Wang, J.J.
(2006). Parent-child Cultural
Marginalization and Depressive Symptoms
in Asian American Family Members.
Journal of Community Psychology, 34(2),
168.