Assignment H- Globalization, Immigration and Citizenship

Globalization has led to increased immigration world wide. According the 2000 census, 32.5 million people in the United States, approximately 11.5 percent of the total population are immigrants. The unprecedented movement of people “threatens both the identities of the original residents of the areas in which newcomers settle and those of the immigrants and their children” (173). Today’s immigrants are increasingly diverse and a vulnerable to the social traumas of prejudice and social exclusion. Phenotypic racial differences can have considerable implications for the ease of assimilation of immigrants into the dominant culture. Even as immigrants gain language and cultural fluency, immigrants of color can face “perpetual foreigner syndrome” making full assimilation into a new culture impossible (178). Societal barriers, intolerance, and racism encountered by many immigrants’ increases the stresses of immigration.
Immigrant youth in particular are challenged to navigate between achieved identities and ascribed or imposed identities. Individuals with achieved identity develop a sense of belonging. Ascribed identity is imposed from either the members of their own group or members of the dominant culture. Identity formation for immigrant children can also be hindered by “cultural distance” between the parent and the new culture (179). The greater the difference between the native and dominant culture the greater the identity confusion. Immigrant youth are faced with the challenge of “double-consciousness”, a sense of seeing themselves through the eyes of others. Negative stereotypes towards immigrants held by the dominant culture can have a detrimental effect on immigrant youth. In these circumstances immigrant youth can fall victim to “stereotype threat”. Youth become resigned to the negative reflections of the dominant culture, leading to low aspirations, low academic performance and engagement, and self depreciating behaviors. Immigrant youth may develop an adversarial stance, identities that are based on rejecting the institutions of the dominant culture. Among these immigrant youth who develop an adversarial stance, embracing aspects of the dominant culture is seen as giving up one’s own cultural identity, for example, doing well in school can be seen as a signal for ethnic betrayal (189-190).
Identity formation for immigrant youth does not always have negative consequences. Many immigrant youth are able to fuse aspects of their parent culture and their new culture. Immigrants who do this synthesize an identity that allows them to incorporate aspects and fuse elements of each culture (192). Immigrant youth who acquire these competencies might be at an advantage in the globalized economy. “The cognitive flexibility that this multiple perspective taking requires is becoming an ever more essential trait for the global citizen” (174).


article cited:
Suarez-Orozco, C (2004)Formulating Identity in a Globalized World. In M. Suarez-Orozco and Qin-Hilliard (eds.) Globalization: Culture and Education in the New Millennium.