The Problem Statement
What role does human migration play in contributing to the cultural diversity of the American society, and how has this led to the creation of modern society through cultural influences? What are some of the social issues raised by migration in the American society, and how has migration evolved in the recent past? What are some of the factors for the factors that have led to increased migration?
The Purpose of The Study
The purpose of this study is to establish the factors that have influenced the increased migration into America by foreign and to show how this increased migration has reshaped American society through cultural integration. The paper equally seeks to identify some of the factors that contribute to cultural diversity, and what this phenomenon means to the typical American culture, as far as social structures are concerned. The other purpose is to identify how social identity has been influenced through the evolution of migration, how different cultures come together to create a new social identity, which embraces diversity. While concentrating on the embracing of cultural diversity, the paper equally focuses on investigating how social identity has been influenced, and what this means for the indigenous cultures, both the Native American culture and the immigrants.
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Literature Review/Theoretical Framework
To build on the thesis of the paper, the research considers various scholarly articles on the effect of migration to America, more particularly from Mexico. Haak et al. (2015) majors on the creation of new social identifies reflecting a diverse culture, or the intermingling of various cultures to form a new social identity that is a mixture and as a result of the evolution of immigration. These authors bring to light the influence the migration of Indian cultures had on the creation of a new cultural identity in European societies. This new identity (Indo-European culture) is the social identity result of the evolution of Indian migration which saw the interaction of the two cultures. This article is useful in pointing out, and thus backing up the arguments of the thesis, that the evolution of migration has led to the creation of a new social identity. In understanding how the nature of migration has evolved over the years, the study will further take into account the observations made by Timmerman and Friedrich (2016) on the prime factors that influenced migration into America. This article is effective in the sense that it brings into account an element that for a long time has gone unrecognized because the recent cases of migration have been reported to be influenced by political and economic instabilities and securities in the mother countries of the immigrants.
Timmerman and Friedrich (2016) address the climatic factors that led to the migration in the early periods. According to the two authors, climatic factors, such as drought, and adverse coastal weather conditions in a great part of the littoral states influenced the migration of the locals to more climatically stable countries, one of them being America. This article is thus valid for this study because it brings to light the climatic aspect of migration, hence playing a vital part in addressing the evolution of migration. In understanding the nature of migration and how it has developed, it is equally essential to put into consideration the genomics involved in migration, and the subsequent adaptation of the migrants, which significantly translates to making structural changes to the environment in which they live in. To this end, the study material provided by Nielsen et al. (2017), plays a critical role in understanding the formation of social identity as being an influence of genetic compositing due to ecological changes. Lastly, the article relates to Mesoudi’s, "Migration, Acculturation and The Maintenance of Between-Group Cultural Variation," which discusses how migration influenced and informed the need to create and maintain a balance between the two, or more cultures that come into contact. The findings of the article report on the creation of new social identity as being the between-group that is thus born out of the interaction.
The theoretical framework of immigration issues in the United States of Amnerica follows two main components of social theory components; citizenship theory and social reproduction theory, both of which this article will further expound on later. The citizenship theory brings to light the factors that contribute to the increased migration into America, which include the ideas of legal institutions, in which Americans enjoy rights to strong private property ownership, among other benefits (Lin, 2017). On the other hand, the social reproduction theory holds that individuals would migrate to countries that are considered liberal to escape social class conflict, and to look for better opportunities for personal development.
Methodology
To create a thesis and expound on it for the article, the approach towards building the argument relied majorly on case studies and the use of scholarly materials. These materials reported data on the influence of migration on cultural influences and the creation of a social identity that acted as a between-group for the societies that came into contact with another out of immigration. The study equally adopted the questionnaire approach in which it directly engaged participants from the American side of the society as well as Mexican immigrants who gave their opinion on some of the cultural, as well as social modifications they have had to go through out of the cultural interactions to create a new social identity for themselves. Besides, these participants were actively engaged in giving their opinion on some of the factors that influenced their migration, which then was matched against each other to establish a trend on some of the factors for their migration. This served the purpose of creating a pattern in migration to expound on the evolution migration has undergone in the recent past.
Research Questions
Some of the main questions that guided the investigation following the thesis included:
What are some of the factors that influence the current cases of migration, and how are these factors different from the factors that influenced early migration cases?
How has migration contributed to the creation of a socially diverse ecology in which various cultures are embraced on the same level, and how has this impacted traditional cultural systems?
Population and Sample
The research was conducted in the metropolitan city of Dallas, Texas county, which has a population of about 1.4 million people, according to the recent censor count (Hotez, 2018). Being a metro city, Dallas is well represented by members of marginalized groups, including Mexicans and other ethnic groups which are considered migrants. Due to such a great representation of minorities and immigrants, it was easy to conduct the study by sampling households, both American and immigrant. The immigrants were then interviewed on the factors that led to their migration into the country, and what role that has played in influencing their otherwise cultural backgrounds. The Americans, on the other hand, were asked to give their opinion on how they believe migration has influenced the creation of a new social identity. Although both groups expressed positive thoughts on the role migration has played in bridging the cultural gap thereby creating a new social identity for both the natives and the immigrants, there is no denying that both sides expressed concern on the role migration has played in facilitating cultural assimilation. Both sides believe, therefore, that immigration has had a direct impact on the erosion of cultural values, and that westernization has diluted cultural values, even though it has played a significant role in advocating for diversity, which makes coexisting relatively easy. In conclusion, both sides agree on the fact that migration has led to the creation of an equal and tolerant society in which people are judged by their capabilities, and not by the color of their skin, or ethnic background.
Data Collection/Data Analysis
To collect the data from the participants, the research focused on the use of questionnaires in which participants were asked to fill in their details, as well as give their opinion. The use of this data collection method ensured that the results provided are genuine and that the participants gave details out of their free will. The use of questionnaires equally secured the privacy of the participants; hence they felt secure enough to answer questions they would have otherwise not answered, or given information about, had the method of collection been more open. In analyzing the data, the researchers created a sampling strategy which ranked responses against a chat to show the strength of arguments for, and against migration being a decisive factor for the creation of a new social identity
Limitations
However, the research was not without its hurdles. One of the main challenges faced included identifying the appropriate candidates for the study. In as much as Dallas is well represented by individuals from diverse backgrounds, getting the right participants was a bit tricky because the study had to focus on adults who had migrated into the country out of their will, not those who came as children, therefore, had no appropriate reasons for their migration. The other challenge was sampling the different categories of participants so that they are grouped according to the factors that influenced their migration into the country. This is because it was important that they are grouped so that the research could establish what factors bore greater significance for what age bracket of immigrants. This then had to be marked against the dominant factors for specific periods. Grouping these factors accordi8ng to their time in history was essential to creating a pattern of factors, to show the evolution of factors, and how such factors influenced the social identity of the society.
References
Haak, W., Lazaridis, I., Patterson, N., Rohland, N., Mallick, S., Llamas, B., ... & Fu, Q. (2015). Massive migration from the steppe was a source for Indo-European languages in Europe. Nature , 522 (7555), 207.
Hotez, P. J. (2018). The rise of neglected tropical diseases in the" new Texas". PLoS neglected tropical diseases , 12 (1), e0005581.
Lin, N. (2017). Building a network theory of social capital. In Social capital (pp. 3-28). Routledge.
Mesoudi, A. (2018). Migration, acculturation, and the maintenance of between-group cultural variation. PloS one , 13 (10), e0205573.
Nielsen, R., Akey, J. M., Jakobsson, M., Pritchard, J. K., Tishkoff, S., & Willerslev, E. (2017). Tracing the peopling of the world through genomics. Nature , 541 (7637), 302.
Timmermann, A., & Friedrich, T. (2016). Late Pleistocene climate drivers of early human migration. Nature , 538 (7623), 92.
