sylvanians and mundovians – long in disgrace, assimilation theory is now back in style

Sylvanians and Mundovians – Long in Disgrace, Assimilation Theory is Now Back in Style.

By Alvaro Lima1

In his book Assimilation in America Life, Milton Gordon sets out to perform a

rigorous analysis of the assimilation process. To that end, he asks the reader to

imagine a hypothetical host country, which he names Sylvania, a country in which

“all its members are of the same race, religion, and previous national extraction.”

Sylvania also has a population with a “relatively uniform cultural behavior except

for social class divisions.” Along, through immigration, come the Mundovians, a

group of people with a different national background, religion, and culture. Gordon

invites us to further imagine that “within the span of another generation, this

population […] has completely taken on the cultural patterns of Sylvanians, has

thrown off any sense of peoplehood based on Mundovian nationality, has changed

its religion, […] has eschewed the formation of any communal organization made up

principally or exclusively of Mundovians, has entered and been hospitably accepted

into the social cliques, clubs, and

institutions of the Sylvanians at various

class levels, has intermarried freely and

frequently with the Sylvanians,

encounters no prejudice or

discrimination […] and raises no value

conflict issues in Sylvania public life.” For

him, this would represent the “ultimate

form of assimilation.” Assimilation theory is born in its purest form! Two

homogeneous peoples meet each other and the immigrant group surrenders its

national background, culture, and religion, adopts those of the host society, which

happily embraces them in their lives and homes.

1 Alvaro Lima is Director of Research for the Boston Redevelopment Authority.Photo: “The Ford English School Graduation Ceremony,” Peter Freese, ed. From Melting Pot to Multiculturalism: E pluribus

unum? – Resource Book. (München: Langenscheidt, 2005), 88.

Later, Gordon invites us to go back to Sylvania and imagine an immigration of

Mundovians yielding a completely different outcome. Now, the Sylvanians accept

many of the behaviors and values of the Mundovians, as the Mundovians change

many of their ways to accommodate the Sylvanians. This process, according to

Gordon, gives rise to a “new cultural system […] which is neither exclusively

Sylvanian nor Mundovian but a mixture of both.” Assimilation theory encounters a

great ally - the concept of the “melting pot.” Here also, in its purest form, before the

stock became Sylvanian-conformity.

For more than a century, these metaphors have dominated academic, policy,

and practice debates about how to conceptualize what Gordon called the “meeting

of peoples.” Following Gordon’s assimilation model, a great deal has been written

about that process with some variations regarding its linearity, scope, phases, and

sequence. Discussions focused also on the fact that some understood it to be a

process while others contemplated it as a desirable

goal.

History, however, produced a different

scenario. The encounter of Sylvanians and

Mundovians inspired by Sylvanian nativist policies

limited the number of Mundovians entering

Sylvania and erected barriers to non-Mundovians.

Others, following Sylvania’s liberal traditions, tried

to help Mundovians to acquire good manners,

habits, and attitudes compatible with Sylvanian’s

traditions. Years later, Sylvanians woke up to an unhappy reality. Mundovians were

not assimilating as fast as desirable, their children and their children’s children

sometimes retrieved old Mundovian cultural traits. At the same time, Sylvanians lost

control of their borders and, not only more Mundovians entered the country than

the stipulated quotas, but also other people with different cultures entered in large

numbers. To complete this scenario, Sylvanians-of-color, a segment left out of

Photo: “The Ford English School Graduation Ceremony,” Peter Freese, ed. From Melting Pot to Multiculturalism: E pluribus


Gordon’s scenarios, began to fight for their civil rights. Assimilation theory entered

in crises. As some Sylvanian intellectuals discovered, ethnicity is not a residual

social category that gradually disappears but rather a social mechanism that could

be called into being rather quickly.

In their influential study “Beyond the Melting Pot,” Glazer and Moynihan

(1970) concluded, “the point about the melting pot is that it did not happen.” Anglo

and non-Anglo Americans are still around after all these years albeit hyphenated.

American culture has

splinted into many

segments. The

American economy has

taken an hourglass

shape making it more

difficult for new

immigrants to find

decent jobs. The gaps

between rich and poor Americans widened, creating an underclass. New

immigrants, particularly non-white immigrants, instead of melting into American

society are confronted with institutional discrimination and segregation joining the

poor minorities in their low-income neighborhoods. Their children, seeing their

parent’s situation, are increasingly aware of discrimination against them create

their own new subcultures. On the other hand, immigrants with high levels of

education enter American mainstream labor market integrating economically

without assimilating.

America is in need not of new metaphors but a clear framework for

integration. The starting point should be the abandonment of Anglo-conformity.

Why should we be so concerned with the disappearance of difference? Why couldn’t

we define immigrant integration as the process whereby immigrants converge

around the mean for the native-born? That is, immigrant’s education attainment,



income levels, occupational prestige, legal rights, and other indicators of equal

opportunity, increasingly approximate those of the native-born.



sylvanians and mundovians – long in disgrace, assimilation theory is now back in style

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