Paper No. 11: The Fallacy That Immigrants Should Assimilate (June 13, 2016) White Paper

One consistent argument about immigration is that immigrants should assimilate. Unfortunately, like everything else having to do with immigration, the assimilation of immigrants is a complex problem because it involves many dynamics. Cultural assimilation is the fusion, or the integration of an ethnic minority into the dominant culture. The argument normally offered is that immigrants are expected to resemble the majority in behavior, values and social mores. Not normally included in the classical definition of sociology is language. However, it is a significant part of the debate about the assimilation of immigrants into America. Ignoring the language factor is, perhaps, because the assimilation of social mores assumes that a common language is part of that requirement. Whether language is part of the sociological definition of assimilation language is central to understanding immigrants in America.