The Integration of Immigrants into American Society (2015) / Chapter Skim
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7 Sociocultural Dimensions of Immigrant Integration
7 Sociocultural Dimensions of Immigrant Integration
Pages 303-344
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. Since 2004, the Pew Research Center has conducted surveys that asked whether respondents believe that a "Growing number of newcomers from other countries strengthens American society, or threatens traditional American customs and values." Although the results for responses to this question vary over time, the belief that immigrants threaten traditional American values and customs has generally been a minority opinion, averaging about 43 percent in 2013, while the proportion who believed that immigrants strengthen American society was 52 percent.1 There are significant differences in opinion by age, education, and partisanship (with older respondents, those without high school degrees, and Republicans more likely 1 Seehttp://www.people-press.org/files/legacy-pdf/3-28-13%20Immigration%20Release.pdf [November 2015]
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Most notably, the General Social Surveys from 1977 to 2014 asked questions about political ideology and opinions on key issues, including the role of the federal government, same-sex marriage, and access to the American Dream. 2 The 2005-2006 Latino National Survey and the 2008 National Asian American Survey also contain sizable samples of immigrants to provide comparisons of attitudes by nativity for various national-origin groups.
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is largely the same. Yet when it comes to political parties, immigrants are much more likely to describe themselves as "independent" than the native-born, a finding that is borne out in surveys of both Latinos and Asian Americans (Figure 7-1)
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Immigrants tend to diverge from the nativeborn on this issue, as they are significantly more likely to believe that the government should do more (36%) than to believe that it does too much (15%)
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Further research indicates that the same trend holds true for Latinos and Asians more generally, suggesting that the views of second and higher generation immigrants are evolving in the same direction as those of highergeneration native-born Americans in general on this issue (Abrajano, 2010; Lewis and Gossett, 2008; Lopez and Cuddington, 2013)
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FIGURE 7-4 Beliefs about the American dream by nativity, 2012. SOURCE: Data from General Social Survey.
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, regardless of nativity status, agree that it is very or fairly important to be able to speak English. In a Pew Research Center/USA Today survey from June 2013, 76 percent of Americans said that they would require learning English as a precondition for immigrant legalization (Pew Research Center, 2013)
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. In addition, 22 percent of children living in immigrant families in 2013 lived in linguistically isolated households.6 Linguistic isolation has important implications for immigrant and second generation integration, because it limits immigrants' social capital and their access to various resources; it also contributes to anxiety (Nawyn et al., 2012)
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. Notably, the importance of English proficiency does not negate the potential positive effects of bilingualism.
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. The current data on English proficiency indicate that 66 percent of the foreign-born who use a foreign language at home speak English "very well" or "well," 23 percent speak it "not well, and 11 percent speak English "not at all" (see Figure 7-6)
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also influence immigrants' English-language abilities. Despite popular concerns that immigrants are not learning English as quickly as earlier immigrants, the data on English proficiency indicate that today's immigrants are actually learning English faster than their predecessors (Fischer and Hout, 2008)
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Language Integration Across Generations If the rate of language integration among the foreign-born over the course of their lifetime is important, the rate of linguistic integration across generations is just as significant. The current evidence suggests that the second and third generations are integrating linguistically at roughly the same rates as their historical predecessors, with complete switch to English and loss of the ability to speak the immigrant language generally occurring within three generations (Alba et al., 2002; Alba, 2005; Portes and Hao, 1998)
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noted that while mainstream media coverage of interethnic conflict and immigration tended to reinforce the dominant racial ideology and fears about immigration, ethnic newspapers provided their readers with an alternative perspective to this ideology and its associated fears about immigrants. The extent to which ethnic and foreign-language media may promote social and economic integration, even as it helps immigrants maintain their native language and ties to their country of origin, is an issue that needs to be studied further.
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. It is also worth noting here that, according to a recent analysis by the Pew Research Center, 2.8 million non-Hispanics speak Spanish at home, the majority born in the United States and with ancestry in non-Spanish speaking countries (Gonzalez-Barrera and Lopez, 2013)
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Meanwhile, as discussed above, an increasing number of native-born Americans are learning the languages immigrants bring with them, while immigrant cultural forms and expressions continue to alter the American cultural landscape. Although the outlook for linguistic integration is generally positive, the lack of English proficiency among many in the recently arrived first generation, particularly in low-skilled, poorly educated, and residentially segregated immigrant populations, coupled with barriers to English acquisition, can impede integration.
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Census Bureau is not allowed to ask questions on reli gious affiliation, researchers have to rely on various other surveys for data on immigrants' religious affiliations. In 2014, according to one survey, the vast majority of immigrants -- 68 percent -- were Christian, while 4 percent were Muslim, 4 percent Buddhist, 3 percent Hindu, 1 percent Jewish, and 2 percent a mix of other faiths (Pew Research Center, 2015)
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. In a 2013 Pew survey, 16 percent of foreign-born Latinos identified as evangelical Protestant, about half of them becoming "born again" after coming to the United States (Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 2008; Massey and Higgins, 2011; Pew Research Center, 2014)
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The data on Muslim immigrants cited below do point in this direction. Among the second generation, a substantial minority appear to be engaged with religious congregations, although here, too, the data are limited.
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In fact, some Latin American immigrants have left Catholicism for smaller evangelical churches that provide more opportunity to develop personal and supportive relationships than do larger Catholic or mainline Protestant congregations (Menjívar, 1999, 2003)
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al., 2008; Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 2012b)
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57) noted, many Islamic American leaders have encouraged Muslim Americans to "assert their rights as Americans and claim their American identity." In the Pew survey, 57 percent of foreign-born Muslims said they wanted to adopt U.S.
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. Yet religion has not become a deep divide between contemporary immigrants and the native-born in the United States as it has in much of western Europe, and religion is not a frequent subject of public debate about immigrant integration (Alba and Foner, 2015)
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The very transformation of the United States into a "Judeo-Christian" nation and the decrease in religious affiliation among the native-born has meant that post-1965 immigrants enter a more religiously open society than their predecessors did 150 years ago (Pew Research Center, 2015; Alba and Foner, 2015)
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Stereotypes about Italian Americans have focused on organized criminal activity and the mafia; but all southern and eastern European immigrants were commonly thought to bring crime to America's cities. European immigrants were generally poor, and their neighborhoods were thought to be highly disorganized and anomic, leading to higher crime rates.
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Immigrants are in fact much less likely to commit crime than natives, and the presence of large numbers of immigrants seems to lower crime rates. The vast majority of research in this area has focused on the individual-level question of whether immigrants have higher crime, arrest, and incarceration rates than native-born individuals.
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Rumbaut and colleagues (2006) compared incarceration rates for the foreign-born and U.S.-born men, ages 18-39, and found that the incarceration of the foreign-born was one-fourth that of the native born.
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They found that adjusting for family and neighborhood background, first generation immigrants were 50 percent less likely to commit crime than the third generation comparison group. And the second generation was 25 percent less likely to commit violent crime than the comparison group.
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Nonetheless, a large body of evidence demonstrates that this belief is wrong. The research shows that immigration is associated with decreased crime rates at both the city and neighborhood levels.
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. The finding that immigrant communities have lower rates of crime and violence holds true for various measures of immigrant concentration (e.g., percent foreign-born, percent recent foreign-born, percent linguistic isolation)
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SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS As this chapter reveals, the evidence for integration of immigrants and their descendants across various sociocultural dimensions is more positive than some fear. The beliefs of both immigrants and the second generation are converging with native-born attitudes on many important social issues.
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Conclusion 7-4 Far from immigration increasing crime rates, studies demonstrate that immigrants and immigration are associated inversely with crime. Immigrants are less likely than the native-born to commit crimes, and neighborhoods with greater concentrations of immigrants have much lower rates of crime and violence than comparable nonim migrant neighborhoods.
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Black Population Is Foreign Born. Washing ton, DC: Pew Research Center.
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. Age at arrival, English proficiency, and social assimila tion among U.S.
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and Western Europe: Bridge or barrier to inclusion? International Migration Review, 42(2)
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Homes, Even among Non-Hispanics. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center.
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. Limited English proficiency and socio-emotional well-being among Asian and Hispanic children from immigrant families.
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. The effects of immigrant concentration on changes in neighborhood crime rates.
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. Exploring the connection between immigration and violent crime rates in U.S.
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Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.
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International Migration Review, 41(4)
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. Household context, generational status, and English proficiency among the children of African immigrants in the United States.
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. Limited English pro ficiency and psychological distress among Latinos and Asian Americans.
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