6. The widening mainstream

Abstract

A persistent theme in responding to mass immigration has been fears about immigrants’ perceived unwillingness to become Americans. Much of this anxiety has been a consequence of misperceptions of the meanings for immigrants of their ethnic group life and identity. Such anxieties have led to Americanization programs, sometimes beneficial and well-meaning and sometimes coercive and nativist. It also is a consequence of not understanding how the dynamic historical growth and development of the United States have continually worked to expand its societal mainstream to accommodate constant economic and technological change as well as the growing diversity of the population. American social forms and processes, as the examples of both the labor movement and electoral politics suggest, have consistently demonstrated considerable absorptive capacities, and they continue to do so. While Americans have not always welcomed immigrants enthusiastically, these homogenizing processes work, though not necessarily rapidly or evenly, toward civil and cultural unity.