Models of integration in a settler society: caveats and complications in the US case

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

The United States is a classic country of immigration that has long defined itself as having been built by successive waves of immigrants. Social scientists often speak of a multicultural or cultural pluralist ‘model of integration’ in the US that recognizes, sometimes even celebrates, diversity at the same time as it assumes and expects immigrants and their children to assimilate and become American. This article complicates the picture. It brings in history to show how national models of integration in the US are not stable but have changed over time. In fact, the very incorporation of earlier waves of immigrants in the past has contributed to these changes. It also considers local-level variation—that is, differences among US cities in policies as well as in widespread understandings about the integration of immigrants. Despite these complications, there are clearly ways that national models of integration matter in the US, which is the theme of the concluding section.