Contemporary American Indian History

Content: Concept of Assimilation – Sociologically Speaking

In light of our history and current events, I spend quite a bit of time on the Sociological theme of Race in our Sociology course to include: the social construction of race, United States immigration policies, and affirmative action – all units created through my affiliation with YNI/DTI.  This unit will be second in the line-up and will focus on the sociological concept of assimilation. Our textbook defines assimilation as “ A process by which ethnic or racial distinctions between groups disappear because one group is absorbed into another group’s culture or because two cultures blend to form a new cultural system.”² 

It is important to dissect the term to explain how the process happens as well as its’ effects on groups.  The sociologist, Milton M. Gordon, identified seven stages in the usually lengthy process of assimilation.  Each of these can occur to varying degrees or may not occur at all. The first stage termed cultural/behavioral assimilation, involves changed cultural patterns.  A common example revolves around religious practices.  For the purpose of this unit, we can look to the desire to bring Christianity to the Native Americans, which was at the heart of the beginning of the formal educational reform efforts by French and Spanish Priests. Reformers looked at the “native religious practices as primitive and barbaric remnants of a pre-civilized existence”.³  They believed that civilization was dependent upon a strong Christian foundation.  That indeed, there was a moral obligation towards incorporating all peoples in these efforts. Gordon considered the second step of the process, structural assimilation, as the essential component to full assimilation. In this stage, one enters “fully into the societal network of groups and institutions, or societal structure.”⁴  If this second step is achieved, all other stages could follow although they may not. Just because the minority group could abandon or give up their cultural patterns, it still does not ensure that the other stages will happen.  These include:  intermarried/interbred (marital assimilation), a development of a mainstream sense of “peoplehood or ethnicity” (identificational assimilation), no discriminatory behavior or prejudiced attitudes (attitude receptional and behavior receptional assimilation).  Lastly, the final step to be completely assimilated is that there is no concern regarding the mainstream “issues involving value and power conflicts with original” (civic assimilation).⁵ 

The distinctions between the minority and dominant groups have nothing to do with their size (in numbers).  A minority group is “a group of people who may be subject to differential and unequal treatment because of their physical, cultural, or other characteristics such as gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, or skin color.”⁶  These groups may in fact be larger than the dominant group but have less power, privilege, and/or social status.  The dominant group is defined as “any physically or culturally distinctive group that has the most economic and political power, the greatest privileges, and the highest social status.”⁷  Interactions of these two groups can be looked at on a continuum.  In another sociology textbook, Benokraitis explains that these interactions range from genocide, the systematic efforts to kill all members.  Internal colonialism unequal treatment and subordinate status of groups within a country, segregation the physical and social separation of dominant and minority groups and assimilation conforming to the culture of the dominant group to pluralism retain culture but have equal status in a society.⁸

Within the minority groups, there is an important distinction between voluntary and involuntary minorities.  Voluntary minorities come to a country to improve their lives, living conditions, future.  This is by their choice.  For example, my grandparents immigrated to the United States from Scotland.  They made this decision for themselves.  No one else decided this or forced this decision upon them. On the other hand, involuntary minorities are the “ethnic/racial groups that did not choose to be a part of a country.  They are forced by slavery, conquest, or colonization.”⁹ Referring back to the text’s definition, involuntary minorities are “absorbed into another group’s culture”¹⁰ – in fact, losing their own cultural traditions, ways, and practices.  Our focus will be on those in the involuntary group, more specifically Native Americans. When reviewing Milton’s work, he describes a variety of definitions of assimilation, “the process by which different cultures, or individuals or groups representing different cultures are merged into a homogeneous unit”, “the process whereby groups with different cultures come to have a common culture”, and  “social process through which two or more persons or groups accept and perform one another’s patterns of behavior”.¹¹  All of these definitions focus on a relationship of reciprocity in which cultural aspects will be shared.  This is not the intent for the students attending Indian boarding schools. In fact, “Cultural interaction and conflict are always subtle and complex processes but they are not always as devastatingly one-sided as in the case of Indians and whites.”¹²