Alexander Dolitsky: Assimilating to the dominant culture is a vital requirement

In January 2020, I was a presenter at the Juneau–Gastineau Rotary Club, speaking on “Several Sanctioned Avenues for Immigration to the United States.” At the end of my presentation, an attendee asked a question: “Alexander, what was the most difficult area of your acculturation and assimilation in the United States?”

“My behavior,” I said without any hesitation. As I answered the question, I instantly observed the reaction of the audience; they expected a different, perhaps more obvious response, such as food, language, customs, economics, politics, appearance, etc.

True, for a newcomer’s adaptation, these socio-economic categories are essential for survival in a foreign environment. Nevertheless, people’s behavior (e.g., temperament, manners, demeanor, gestures, conduct, actions, bearing, comportment, preferences, motivation, ambition, etc.) is the most critical obstacle to acculturation and assimilation into new cultural traditions.

According to prominent American sociologist Joseph Eaton, “Acculturation is the adoption of cultural traits, norms, and customs by one society from another… There is no clear line that can be drawn between acculturation and assimilation processes. Assimilation is the end product of a process of acculturation, in which an individual has changed so much as to become dissociated from the value system of his group, or in which the entire group disappears as an autonomously functioning social system.”

All of us live within a culture. Most cultural descriptions have labels such as “middle class,” “American,” or “Yupik and Inupiat.” These labels often become associated in our minds with certain habitual features. One such attribute for “middle-class Americans,” for example, might be typical foods—hamburgers, hot dogs, and Coca-Cola. Of course, this is a very broad and superficial understanding of culture.

Culture is learned behavior passed from one generation to another—an ongoing process that changes gradually over time as a learned means of survival. In contrast, all animals adapt to their environment through biological evolution. If an animal was well adapted to its physical environment, it prospered. If it was not, it either evolved or became extinct.

As a result of biological evolution and adaptation to the northern environment, for example, the polar bear developed a thick coat and layers of fat to protect it from the Arctic cold. But the Yupik and Inupiat do not possess fur. They wear warm clothing, and in the past, made sod houses to protect themselves from the harsh environment. Their ancient tools and dwellings were part of their culture—their adaptive system that coincides with the polar bear’s fur.

In short, language, religion, education, economics, technology, social organization, art, and political structure are typical categories of culture. Culture is a uniquely human system of habits, moral values, and customs carried by society from one’s distant past to the present.

Acculturation and assimilation into a dominant culture by newcomers is a personal and self-determined process—the right to make one’s own decisions without interference from others. No one can force a newly arrived legal and vetted immigrant to accept the cultural traditions, lifestyle, and customs of his or her new country. The newcomer himself must see a socio-economic necessity and benefit in accepting new traditions and values in order ultimately to embrace and accept his or her new culture without external influence.

Normally, a dominant host culture determines and directs a process of acculturation and assimilation for new ethnic minorities. For example, it is expected that core Judeo-Christian values in the United States will be embraced and accepted by newcomers. However, a massive influx of foreign cultures may significantly influence an ethnic landscape, social programs, political dynamics, and core cultural values of a host country, as is evident today with a large and unvetted wave of illegal immigration from all directions of the compass to the United States.

Prior to my departure from Europe to the United States in January of 1978, the population of Europe remained largely segregated by nationality, with the French in France, Italians in Italy, and Austrians in Austria, etc. Over the past four decades, however, most European nations have experienced significant immigration from deeply religious and radical Muslim countries, with only a few exceptions like Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia largely bypassing this trend. This influx has shifted demographics and sparked intense debate across the continent. As a result, it has created cultural chaos, far-left socialist movement, degradation of Judeo-Christian traditions, and incited regional conflicts in Europe.

European experience shows that unmanaged inflows of unvetted newcomers can lead to widespread instability. Thus, the United States must learn that managing mass migration requires balancing secure, orderly borders with effective integration policies to avoid intense social, economic, and political strain. European experiences highlight the dangers of overwhelmed infrastructure and the risk of fostering anti-immigrant political shifts when integration fails.

The author was born and raised in the former Soviet Union before settling in the U.S. in 1978. He moved to Juneau in 1986 where he taught Russian studies and Archaeology at the University of Alaska Southeast, and Social Studies Teacher at the Alyeska Central School of the Alaska Department of Education. From 1990 to 2022, he served as a director and president of the Alaska-Siberia Research Center, publishing in the fields of anthropology, history, archaeology and ethnography. Find him on Amazon.com.