This research paper discusses the assimilationist process in theory and in practice and the relevance thereto of the experience of the Garifuna. The Garifuna are an extreme example of the fractionating or non-assimilative nature of many minorities found among recent immigrant groups in America.
The cited Los Angeles Times article describes the cultural experience of the Garifuna over the past several centuries. They were the survivors of a shipwreck in 1600 near the Caribbean island of St. Vincent. All African-Americans destined for slavery prior to the shipwreck, the Garifuna acquired a distinctive identity as 'Black Caribs' after they intermingled with Caribbean natives in St. Vincent and along the east coast of Central America. They speak a now extinct South American dialect known as
Arawakan. Today's survivors left St. Vincent in 1797 after it was taken over by the British rather than give up their language and culture.
Always a small minority wherever they have lived, anthropologist Catherine Mecklin says they "come from a proud tradition of mobile, persistent people, who have succeeded in maintaining their legacy over the centuries, in numerous nations, despite hostile physical and social environments" (O'Connor n.p.).
Traditional functional ethnic relations theory has held that assimilation, which Macionis defines as "the process by which minorities gradually adopt patterns of the dominant culture," is both healthy and inevitable (330). In the American context, that view was that the mainstream of the culture would absorb all immigrant groups, who would adapt their behavior and attain their goals in the host society and realize their latent potential through assimilation --i.e. A.G.I.I., adaptation, goal attainment, integration and latency.
The positive aspects of assimilation were captured by the term 'Melting Pot,' the idea that American democracy would be enriched and strengthened by the similarities and ...