For decades sociologists and the popular American narrative framed the immigration path as a journey of assimilation. In this theory, immigrants were welcomed to America and worked with the promise that their children would belong, in the fullest constitutional, social, and cultural sense, as genuine citizens. As the Twentieth Century progressed, Race Theory eclipsed that view so totally that the former became not only seen as naïve and factually wrong, but also as a racist fantasy in service of the ruling white class. The social-historical math of that proposition is not hard to cipher for anyone who is ready to give up the myth of a golden age.
Richard Alba, Distinguished Professor of Sociology at CUNY’s Graduate Center, certainly is ready, but he also argues that the equation is more complex than many presume. This post doesn’t pretend to summarize Alba’s argument or agree with it all (there’s only one book I agree with in every case and parts of that still puzzle me). Consider this post a poke urging you to read his book, “The Great Demographic Illusion,” for yourself. Here are some early thoughts from this reader.
A look beyond the idealized prose of Lady Liberty discovers social, economic, and legal realities that look more like a layered cake than a melting pot. And guess who gets all the frosting? Like all ideals, America’s visage of a welcoming bosom needed a reality check by people who were ready to look again. It still and always will need scrutiny. But replacing an idealized America with a villainized America is to trade one tired exaggeration for another. Reality resists quick or simple explanations and definitions with fierce tenacity, no matter whose side of the story (or history) the observer takes.
Alba tells a more complex and hopeful story without minimizing the history or the challenges minorities still face. He sees Jim Crow, Redlining, and disparity in education and incarceration for what they are. But he sees more. His wonky analysis of demographic data, history, and social theory is surprisingly readable for the layperson, but still takes work. A persistent reader, however, will learn that the ideal and the real can be (dare we say) integrated, if the common goal is to make reality more like what we long for it to be. We can’t explore his entire argument, but certain features are worth pointing out.
Of course, he crunches numbers like a mad (social) scientist, thankfully with the gift of explanation. For our purposes, however, I’ll note two arguments without pretending to do either justice. First, he explains the data behind the ubiquitous prediction that America will be a ‘minority-majority’ country by 2050–that is, for the first time whites will compose less than 50% of the population. For those of us who don’t live in the world of census studies, that alone is worth the book.
More substantively, his conclusion is that the future “face” of America is certainly going to be different, but what that difference does to the racial identity of the nation will be significantly shaped by how the adult children of mixed marriages see and express themselves in racial and cultural terms. Additionally, only “non-Hispanic whites” are categorized as whites by the Census Bureau, which obviously impacts projections of whites downward. He notes that factor, but the leverage of his conclusion comes from his convincing work with the complex data of rising mixed-race marriages, the racial self-identification of their offspring, and their assimilation into the “American Mainstream.”
Consider this,
Mixed individuals who are integrating into often diverse milieus that contain whites are likely to play a pivotal role in the near future in defining the ethno-racial contours of the United States. Race theory at this point lacks the conceptual apparatus to adequately address the twenty-first-century significance of this new and largely unheralded force. It remains under the spell of historical experiences of racial domination, especially of African Americans.
Alba, Richard. The Great Demographic Illusion (p. 156). Princeton University Press.
Before I close with a brief word about Alba’s acknowledgement of countervailing data and social experience, it’s important to recognize the impact of the growing number of mixed marriages on our future. Critics of Assimilation Theory may hear a coded promise about whites hanging on to numeric dominance as they welcome more people into “whiteness.” Let me be clear; that is neither Alba’s conclusion nor from his tone and editorial observations, his cultural vision.
He won’t play the nullification game by using a preferred-data set to eclipse another.
Alba is aware that the effects of the elevated rate of mixed marriages won’t manifest themselves definitively for some time. However, there is reason to believe that along with other important factors, the trendline offers some hope that genuine cultural integration is possible without minorities being pressured into conformity with the (white) American Mainstream. Indeed, given the demographic metamorphosis we are undergoing (something he does not discount or resist) it’s bound to. What’s more, it did so in the early Twentieth Century. You’ll have to read the book for that. Alba discusses work he and Victor Nee of Cornel published arguing for what’s often called “Neo-Assimilation” demonstrating that the mainstream “face” of America has and can change, if properly understood.
In fact it is.
Taken as a whole, the evidence of minority socioeconomic mobility and entry into mixed families with white partners, combined with the patterns of integration so apparent for many of the children from mixed families, suggests strongly that we are witnessing processes of mainstream inclusion that have parallels in the American past. The main motor for growing integration in the early twenty-first century is different—demographic shift rather than economic expansion—but the integration seems similar in key respects.
Alba, Richard. The Great Demographic Illusion (p. 201). Princeton University Press.
Get the book and read what follows that quote. You will see his consistent and, in an academic genre, passionate recognition that the obstacles blacks face are more substantial than others and need to be addressed aggressively. However, there is hope that although skirmishes are inevitable and likely good on the whole, a genuinely inclusive American Mainstream can be realized without defaulting to bare-knuckle socio-political policy and culture wars that trade one blunt culture force for another.
No one but an ideologue could read this book and conclude that his work downplays American racism, but sadly suggesting there are even modest reasons for hope can be controversial. Thankfully, Alba doesn’t make such critic’s work easy. His argument holds the nuanced and blunt in a balance that doesn’t tilt to despair or naivete. He knows when to qualify his observations, whichever direction they trend, but he won’t play the nullification game by using a preferred data set to eclipse an inconvenient one. The book isn’t trying to usurp Race Theory. It seems, however, that the author wants to refine it with a firm, but friendly, critique.
Leaving Alba’s treatment of the issue there, for my part CRT needs to be refined. Like any cultural orthodoxy, it also deserves robust critique. The hegemony of CRT in the academy, media, and tech sector, to name a few of the most powerful influencers in America, demonstrates that it is ensconced in power structures itself. That’s important to recognize since part of CRT claims that racism equals prejudice plus power. Of course any student of history, black or white, should be concerned that American interest in racial justice will recede, as it has again and again. I am committed to making sure that doesn’t happen in me or my domains of influence, but shouting down countervailing data with names and threats is just bullying. CRT gets important things right, but not everything. Wherever one lies on the Race Theory/Assimilation Theory continuum, hope should not be a racial heresy.
