| Assimilation is both an important and controversial issue in the Americanimmigration study. As an increasing number of non-white immigrants flow intoAmerica, whether they will follow the integration pattern of early Europeanimmigrants become an issue of concern. Mexican immigrants, as the largestnon-white ethnic minority in America, are always in the teeth of the storm. Theimmigration of Mexicans to the United States dated back to the early20thcentury andit keeps the trend of rising since the1970s. The younger generations of MexicanAmericans have been different from their immigrant ancestors in many ways but arestill stuck in the lowest rungs of social stratification. Most of them do not graduatefrom college, live in Hispanic neighborhoods and are underpaid as unskilled workers.Large and continuous immigration waves of Mexican immigrants have shed muchimpact on many aspects of American society. As their integration pattern differs fromthe previous European assimilation pattern, some nativist scholars come to pessimisticconclusion that later generation Mexican Americans are and will experiencedownward assimilation and the challenge and threat that they brought to America isunprecedented. Though as compared with the earlier European immigrants, theassimilation of Mexican Americans may be progressive as they are faced with moresocial problems, the prospect of their assimilation into the mainstream American ispositive.The study combines the internal comparison of Mexican Americans of four tofive generations and the contrast between Mexican Americans and other ethnic groupsin the United States to reveal the social problems of Mexican Americans and also thesocial roots being the main causes of these problems. Finally it comes to theconclusion that the most fundamental and efficient way is to enlarge the educationinvestment of Mexican Americans and give them equal education as non-Hispanicwhites can solve the problem of the retarded upward social mobility of MexicanAmericans. |
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