RE: Dean Baker on immigration
Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
My explanation, informed by the views of Thomas and Znaniecki on immigration (The Polish peasant in Europe and America) and Max Weber (The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism_) on modernity, is that immigrants who come from “collectivistic societies,” such as Eastern Europe and Latin America, have a harder time adopting to “individualistic societies” such as the US - and their coping strategy often relies on cultivating collectivism and nationalist identity politics.
I could swear that Polish-Americans are pretty completely assimilated, though maybe I’ve just run into the wrong bunch. Or maybe I’m thinking of the ones who came here in the early 20th century - their kids & grandkids are pretty well Americanized. More recent arrivals may not be, but that’s not surprising.
Doug