1. The approach I see as most beneficial (to the immigrants themselves) is the one in which the immigrants assimilate more slowly. One reason is that the immigrants will thereby retain connection with their culture, while at the same time being able to converse enough with the dominant culture to take advantage of social, economic and other opportunities.
The conflict between the revolutionary Kiswana and her bourgeois mother in Gloria Naylor's The Women of Brewster Place illustrates the positions of one who has not assimilated enough, thereby denying herself greater opportunity, and one who has assimilated too much, thereby losing her original cultural connections and disdaining her own people. Kiswana's mother is berating her daughter for living in poverty, and Kiswana argues that revolution is necessary to overthrow the system. Kiswana's mother offers a defense of the middle ground, even though she herself has fully assimilated: "You're going to have to fight within the system, because it and these so-called 'bourgie' schools are going to be here for a long time. . . . You don't have to sell out, . . . but you could . . . open a freedom school in this very neighborhood" (Naylor, 1983, 84).
In his introduction to his book Chicano Voices, Carlota Cardenas de Dwyer argues essentially that the "distinct Chicano culture" is itself a culture representing the effective gradual assimilation which preserves the original culture while providing opportunity to enter the prevailing culture: "Living on the frontiers of two dynamic civilizations, Chicanos have witnessed the evolution of two great societies and from them have created a distinct Chicano culture. The Chicano heritage is a blend of all that has come before" (de Dwyer vii). De Dwyer's character Richard Rubio is a young man who will likely walk the middle road between his culture and assimilation. Richard recognizes that assimilation does not mean the elimination of the indiv...