Assimilation

Assimilation of today’s immigrants is one topic in the current debate on immigration. Some observers assert that recent immigrants are unable to assimilate into American society as easily as past
immigrants were able to. Others counter that the pressures against assimilation today are not
strong. In this working paper, Senior Scholar Joel Perlmann and Research Associate Roger
Waldinger, professor of sociology at the University of California at Los Angeles, argue that
assimilation cannot be studied as an outcome alone, but should be viewed as a process, aspects
of which are important in their own right.