SOC210H1 Lecture : Chapter 2
Document Summary
historically assimilation was a contested idea that reflecting different visions of a society that was coming into being. anglo-conformity (early version), the expectation that immigrant groups should swallow intact the existing anglo-american culture while simultaneously disgorging their own. assimilation is not a static or unchanging concept y. Its definition and specifications have evolved steadily as american society has changed in its more than several-century experience of immigration. It does not require what many critics of assimilation theory, assume, namely, the erasure of all signs of ethnic origins. Immigrants settle initially in dilapidated areas in a city s industrial and commercial center. Immigrant groups initially enter slums crowded to overflowing with immigrant colonies. move in the next generation to ethnic working-class neighbourhoods, and may eventually disperse into the promised land at the city s edge. gordon s analysis focused attention on the last stage of park s race relations cycle.
