Assimilation, acculturation, adaptation: competing concepts for subtle processes

Words do not describe docile and passive human experiences, they construct the way we understand them: our access to the experience will be mediated and transformed by the words, models and narratives we use. This is even more true for phenomena that are complex and result from the subtle interplay of diverse factors. Adaptation to a new or dominant cultural environment is such a phenomenon. The words we choose to describe this are not trivial or inconsequential. ‘Assimilation’ was one of the first words used to describe such processes of change, and despite its age, it is still with us today. The word comes from Latin, denoting absorption or incorporation. It appears in English in the 15th century with a similar meaning, referring to body and nutrition, but it gains a broader meaning later (‘to make alike’).^[1] Its popularization as a concept to denote what happens to groups of people who become a cultural minority originates in the Chicago School’s ‘classical model’ in the early 20th century.

Between 1830 and 1880, the population of Chicago grew from 500 to 500,000 inhabitants. By 1910, there were two million inhabitants,^[2] unprecedented growth that was almost exclusively due to the influx of migrants. No wonder the social scientists of the time were eager to propose explanations for the exciting social processes that were taking place. What they observed was a majority of Irish and Italian migrants, coming from rural areas, settling into the urban environment of Chicago, who fairly soon after their cultural immersion ‘began to work, talk, live, and play like others who were already there’. After several generations, they slowly shifted from being clearly identifiable groups of ethnic immigrants to being enmeshed in mainstream American life and seen as ‘Americans’.^[3]

These observations triggered explanations based on optimism and linearity. Assimilation was described as ‘the process or processes by which peoples of diverse racial origins and different cultural heritages, occupying a common territory, achieve cultural solidarity’,^[4] or as a process of ‘interpenetration and fusion in which persons and groups acquire the memories, sentiments, and attitudes of other persons or groups, and by sharing their experiences and history, are incorporated with them in a common cultural life’.^[5] Above all, it was seen as a ‘straight-line convergence’^[6] that any immigrant group would experience and that would inevitably lead to the same result, with an overall loss of distinguishing features. However, just as the context of an Irish migrant in Chicago in the 1900s is different from that of all the other migrants from any continent in relation to any destination that would follow, the journey of adaptation would also be different. It turned out that ‘straight-line assimilation’ would not be the one description that would fit all cases.

Fast-forwarding half a century of cross-cultural research, a next unavoidable stop in our conceptual voyage is John W. Berry’s ‘matrix of acculturation strategies’. Berry proposes to take ‘acculturation’ as the most generic concept (rather than ‘assimilation’) to denote changes that migrants or members of minorities would experience on different levels, such as emotions, thoughts and behaviours.^[7] ‘Assimilation’ becomes only one possible outcome of the acculturative processes, among three others that he called ‘strategies’, even if he was aware that the suggestion of conscious planning may be misleading, as members of minorities are not completely free to decide what ‘strategy’ they will embark on. In any case, in 1974, he proposed his typology, with a wonderfully simple and clear structure, to answer the question of ‘how people acculturate’. He proposed the consideration of two questions: firstly, do migrants/minorities wish to ‘maintain their heritage, cultures and identities’?; secondly, do they wish to engage with members of the host/dominant society? Based on these two questions, four acculturation strategies emerge: integration, segregation, assimilation and marginalization.

Each of these four strategies has different features and also different implications in terms of well-being and identity. Integration is often depicted as the ‘best’ strategy. It occurs when individuals are able to adopt the cultural norms of the dominant or host culture, while also maintaining their culture of origin. Integration leads to and is often synonymous with biculturalism. People hold on to some aspects of their own culture, such as central norms and values, but also engage with the new cultural environment.

Separation or segregation occurs when individuals reject the dominant or host culture in favour of preserving their culture of origin. In this case, they focus on maintaining their own values and avoiding contact with the majority culture as much as possible. Separation is often facilitated by immigration to ethnic enclaves. It may be a strategy used to find positive identity in a cultural environment where one’s social group is discriminated against or undervalued by isolating oneself from the negative representations in the dominant group.

Marginalization takes place when individuals do not engage with either their culture of origin or the dominant culture. This may happen due to limited possibilities for interaction with members of the host culture (often for reasons of exclusion or discrimination) or because of a lack of interest in cultural maintenance. This may lead to isolation from both cultural groups (host as well as culture of origin).

Finally, assimilation is clearly a much more specific process here than in the ‘classical model’ of the Chicago School. Assimilation occurs when individuals reject their minority culture and adopt the cultural norms of the dominant or host culture. They seek daily interaction with the host culture, and their ambition is to become accepted as part of the majority culture. Among other things, assimilation has been associated with a weakening of the immune system,^[8] and it is often reported to bring about higher levels of acculturation stress and dissatisfaction.^[9] It is assumed that this negative relationship between assimilation and well-being is because complete assimilation is rarely possible. Visual markers, names and accents often highlight the strangeness of immigrants, and they are still perceived as foreigners after many years in the host country. Those engaging in an assimilation journey often face a gap between their self-perceptions and the perceptions that members of the host society reflect back to them.

In the half century that separates our present moment from the genesis of the matrix explained above, Berry has probably received as much criticism as the classical Chicago model in its own time. Berry’s model is indeed ‘simple’ and as such cannot account for all the diversity of human experiences, in particular of the impact of power differences, colonialism, variability in the degree of differences between host culture and culture of origin, or even of physically visible differences (members of racialized groups have a different experience than non-racialized) and/or a context of forced migration, etc. Moreover, the model seems to suggest that migrants make a strategic decision once and for all, whereas in reality, different acculturation strategies are more likely to apply to a situation or life domain rather than a person. Also, the model does not help to analyse all the complexities implied by ‘integration’, when there are contradictions and incompatibilities between the culture of origin and the host culture. Finally, one last simplification: no one can be properly characterized by just two sets of identities (‘host culture’ and ‘culture of origin’), as each of us bears a very diverse collection of cultural baggage, such as national culture, religious culture, urban or rural culture, and professional culture, to name just a few.

Nevertheless, as a basic conceptual orientation, the model remains very useful. These four concepts continue to influence the way we consider the path that newcomers/minorities are supposed to take. In particular, it helps us to gain a more concise understanding of ‘assimilation’, which we recommend using in this narrower, more specific sense, so that we can explore the next question: Is there any pressure that states and ‘majority societies’ exert on newcomers and minorities? What are their chances of doing this effectively?

Assimilation from the point of view of the assimilator

Contemporary nation-states have their own visions, approach and institutions for the management of cultural diversity covering a broad spectrum on the multicultural/intercultural to universalist/assimilationist scale. What varies is the extent to which the state makes it a priority to ‘help’ members of minorities to assimilate and to what extent it also offers support in the maintenance of minority cultural identities.

A multiculturalist/interculturalist orientation may be enshrined in legislation. We might check whether members of a minority have specific cultural rights. In France, such specific group rights would amount to discrimination. In Hungary, there are such rights but only for the thirteen official ‘ethnic and national minorities’, which excludes more recent groups of migrants. We might also pay attention to official discourse and wording. For example, according to the official procedure for obtaining French citizenship, candidates must undergo an interview to prove their ‘assimilation into the French community’.^[10] Finally, we might explore how cultural heritage is considered: Are heritage elements of minority members safeguarded, promoted, included? What celebrations appear in the official calendar?

The promotion of assimilation may be perceived as a political necessity, but even the proponents of the classical model knew that assimilation under pressure does not work. As Bogardus argued: ‘To forbid the use of one’s native tongue, especially when that is inseparably bound up with religious worship and with domestic experiences and sentiments, at once arouses one’s loyalty to that which one is about to lose. One will die rather than give up the old loyalties’.^[11] Park and Burgess agree: ‘Not by the suppression of old memories, but by their incorporation in his new life is assimilation achieved […] Assimilation cannot be promoted directly, but only indirectly, that is, by supplying the conditions that make for participation. There is no process but life itself that can effectively wipe out the immigrant’s memory of his past’.^[12]

Education, assimilation and cultural heritage

As we can see in the section above, we can reasonably discuss questions of acculturation and assimilation while skipping any reference to the concept of ‘cultural heritage’. What we would like to explore here is what added value ‘cultural heritage’ brings to this discussion. We see at least two perspectives that we explore in the following.

Pedagogical perspective: anchoring in the concrete

To many people who have not completed an introductory cultural anthropology course, the concept of ‘culture’ may be notoriously elusive, particularly in its broader, anthropological sense, which includes practices as mundane as washing dishes or going to the toilet. In intercultural training, to talk about cultural identity, we first need to understand the concept of culture, how it defines us and how it underlines everything around us. By the time we come to talk about changes in cultural identity, learners may have already acquired so much new knowledge that their capacity for absorption may be saturated. The reference to ‘cultural heritage’ may offer a pedagogical shortcut. When it comes to visible material heritage, learners may find it easier to think of examples that matter to them. In fact, even immaterial heritage may be easier to access than the abstraction of ‘culture’ alone.

Political perspective: question of rights

From the angle of assimilation/acculturation to a new cultural environment, it is very easy to put the burden unilaterally on the members of minorities and newcomers, assuming that to be able to function properly they need to adapt to certain norms and practices. It is this same unilateral perspective that we see reflected in the different tests and agreements required for citizenship and naturalization: there is nothing about how the host society will help the newcomer or minority members make their own respective contributions. However, the heritage perspective could remedy this asymmetry. The Faro Convention’s Article 4 on ‘Rights and responsibilities relating to cultural heritage’ discusses a right to heritage and a responsibility to respect the heritage of others. Importing such reciprocity into the ‘acculturation’ discussion could help shift the focus from the unilateral demand for adaptation and change.

The activity below has the ambition of exploring these two perspectives of enabling reflection on cultural heritage to trigger an interactive and somewhat experiential discussion of assimilation.