Jie Min | Stephen Klineberg | June 3, 2015
Since the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act in 1965, the United States has once again become a “nation of immigrants,” and among the immigrants who have come since 1965, more than 30 percent are from Asian countries. Houston, as one of the nation’s most important “gateway” cities, is a major destination for the new immigrant waves. More than 70 percent of all the adult Asians in Houston today are first-generation immigrants.
How well are these Asian immigrants adapting to U.S. society? Do they come to think of themselves as “Americans” the longer they are here? Do they develop close friendships with people from other racial and ethnic communities? Do they gradually loosen their connections to the cultures of their home countries as they become increasingly “Americanized”?
Drawing on the two most recent Kinder Houston Area Asian Surveys, conducted in 2002 and 2011, we assess these aspects of Asian assimilation. To measure self-reported national identity, the survey participants were asked, “Do you think of yourself as primarily Asian, equally Asian and American, or primarily American?” As shown in the accompanying chart, the longer the Asian immigrants have lived in the United States the more likely they are to say that they consider themselves to be “Americans.”
The survey participants were queried about their interethnic friendships through three questions, asking them if they have close personal friends who are (1) Anglo, (2) black, or (3) Hispanic. As indicated in the chart, half of the Asian immigrants who had lived in the United States for more than 20 years said they had close personal friends from all three ethnic communities, but this was the case for only a quarter of the immigrants who had lived in this country for fewer than 10 years.
To measure the extent of continued participation in Asian cultural activities, the respondents were asked how often during the past year they had participated in the following: (1) an Asian holiday or cultural event, (2) the meetings of an Asian organization in Houston, or (3) making a special effort to teach younger family member about their Asian background. Strikingly, as indicated in the chart, participation in these kinds of cultural activities is totally unaffected by the length of time the Asian immigrants have been in America.
We have seen that the longer Asian immigrants have lived in this country, the more likely they are to see themselves as Americans and the more fully integrated they are in the multiethnic community that is Houston (and America) today. At the same time, however, the assimilation process does not appear to entail losing the traditions and customs of their countries of origin or participating any less in Asian cultural activities.
Asian immigrants are becoming fully “American” while also retaining deep connections to their countries of origin. In this era of transnational economies, instantaneous communications, and inexpensive travel, those networks are easier to maintain and nurture than they were during the last great wave of American immigration at the turn of the last century. All of us benefit enormously from the international and cross-cultural relationships that Asian Americans continue to develop, helping immeasurably to strengthen Houston’s connections to the global economy of the twenty-first century.
THREE MEASURES OF ASIAN ASSIMILATION BY TIME IN THE UNITED STATES (2002, 2011)
Min, a second-year graduate student in Rice University’s sociology department, assisted in developing and analyzing the 2015 Kinder Houston Area Survey.