Transitions: Adjustment Strategies of American Immigrants

Transitions discusses the development of adjustment processes among succeeding cohorts of American immigrants as the country itself changed and grew. Starting from an early, largely uni-cultural British America, the country progressed through a period when many came from dissimilar European backgrounds. Immigrants had more choices of adjustment orientations and personal identities—for example, joining an assimilative melting pot, continuing to live a basically European life in America, or versions of hyphenated mixed identities. More recently, new laws led to important changes in immigrant flows—more coming from Latin America and the Far East. These tended toward a bi-cultural condition in which their previous personality remained while a new American one developed. More recent attention has focused on hybrid identities, discussed with reference to some immigrant Muslims. Finally, the extraordinary explosion in information and media technology in recent years has led some to a post-cultural pattern, featuring fluid adjustments arising out of specific and broadened personal experiences