Assimilation vs Integration: A dive into meaning and reality
“As long as you come here integrate, work hard and pay your taxes, you’re welcome”.
I saw this comment on a post on LinkedIn on 1st September as the summer draws to a close – another summer of racial unrest and division, another summer where far right people and racists target refugees and those who have arrived here by boat with their vitriol and hate.
So, it is important to unpick the types of responses we are seeing so we can understand it, apply critical thinking and decide what we think of the statement and the topic it relates to.
Assimilation and Integration
“As long as you come here integrate, work hard and pay your taxes, you’re welcome”.
In the history of Britain, we have demanded that those coming here assimilate and integrate, but what do we mean by this in the context of immigration, migration, racism and Britain.
Assimilation – the process whereby the minority group or culture takes on the behaviours, values, rituals and beliefs of the majority group.
Now, it is vital that we remember the history of this. In the US, Australia, Canda, New Zealand and more, assimilation was forced upon Indigenous people. Culture was stripped by the majority. In Scotland, that looked like banning the Scottish language.
Where a minority comes into the majority group, by for example being asked to rebuild the UK after World War II, assimilation is expected and communicated through outward expressions such as the quote I gave above, through schooling and education, and through the exclusion of a person or group because they don’t conform to the majority norms.
Sometimes, the minoritised person will try exceptionally hard to assimilate and use references of the majority identity and culture to communicate that they are in fact assimilated. This is evident in the author’s original post:
“We love our fish and chips and Sunday roast, and what can beat a full fry-up English breakfast, sausages and mash with gravy? Our little boy loves it all!! I can't bear the test of Chicken Tikka Massala, though (although most of those foods have a questionable identity regarding their country of origin!!)”
Here, we can see that the family has tried to take on the behaviours of the majority culture through their food - a huge cultural signifier.
Integration - blending and harmonising different cultural perspectives.
Here, there is some give and take. Both cultures adopting practices of the other. One example of that could be what happens in New Zealand where the school system has selected what it considers the best of both cultures to create one education system. Now, there is a significant difference in opinion on whether or not this is successful or done well, but the approach is what we are examining here, not the success or otherwise.
Chicken Tikka Masala is a good example of how integration can manifest, where elements of South Asian cuisine are blended with what the British palette likes to create a new dish for this particular place, at a particular time.
Assimilation and integration can be harmful.
Put simply, in order to be accepted, you have to give up something. It leads to a loss of identity, stress, loss, poor mental health, and in return, you still have to endure systemic, institutional and interpersonal racism.
These two approaches still position the dominant or majority identity as the norm – anything outside of that norm is punished through exclusion, violence, bullying and harassment.
How do we know? Two examples:
Despite serving fish and chips at a Chinese takeaway, it still has the St George’s flag graffitied on it
Despite speaking English, there is now a suggestion from the Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, that the required standards of English need to be higher to enter the country, where 1 in 6 people have poor to no reading skills .Here, higher standards are expected of the minority, than the majority group.
Assimilation suggests that the minority has no intrinsic value
If a person’s culture and cultural identity was seen as valuable, then a reasonable person or group of people wouldn’t expect them to reject it in order to ‘fit in’.
If a person’s culture was seen as valuable and an asset to them, the welcoming society or host would want them to remain true to themselves, so that everyone could benefit. Perhaps this is what is intended by integration, but there is still something to give up under the integrated system.
Inclusion says that you are intrinsically valuable
Inclusion welcomes difference and sees it as something that everyone can learn from and benefit from. It sees a person as whole, perfect and complete with inherent value that does not need to change in order to be accepted.
Most people and organisations claim that they want to be inclusive, but don’t actually know what it means.
Really, they are looking for integration or assimilation.
Having read these definitions and examples, how inclusive do you think you are really, as an individual and as an organisation?
What are your beliefs about assimilation, integration and inclusive?
What would it take to be really inclusive?
What should you do now with your learning?
Related blogs
🔗How to keep EDI work going in political turmoil
🔗How our organisation supports yours to become inclusive
🔗Diversity doesn’t guarantee inclusion
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