![Sample our Humanities journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5939/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Humanities.jpg"})
Abstract
After reviewing traditional approaches to the study of immigrant adaptation, we develop a theory of differential adaptation, which suggests that migrants may adapt in a variety of ways that do not necessitate that they acquiesce to larger pressures to assimilate or accommodate the larger society they have joined; moreover, they may change the existing culture and society into which they move. Their experiences are “differential” and require a more complex theoretical framework for researching the relationships among immigration, culture, power, agency, and communication.
Notes
1. Park viewed U.S. America as a melting pot, one where immigrant identity and culture would eventually melt away, leaving no need for an immigrant press (Kanellos, Citation2007, p. 439).
2. The concept of ethnocentrism is also an important topic in The Authoritarian Personality, as well (Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson, & Sanford, Citation1950).
3. Jensen and Hammerback mention a similar dearth of scholarship about Mexican Americans and Chicanos in the field. In a 1980 article published in the Western Journal of Communication, Jensen and Hammerback state that, “Only one study on Mexican-American public address (Powers, Citation1973) and none concerned with Mexican-American theory appeared in national or regional journals in Speech Communication. No book has ever been written on Chicanos by speech communication scholars.”
4. There are other relevant works by Kim, e.g., Kim (Citation1995, Citation2005b). It should be noted that Becoming Intercultural (Kim, Citation2001) is a revision of Communication and Cross-Cultural Adaptation (Kim, Citation1988), but significantly expands and updates the prior work. Because of this, we focus on Becoming Intercultural.
5. Even those critical of adaptation theory figure Kim's work centrally (see, for example, and Bishop, Citation2013; Kramer, Citation2000; Xu, Citation2013).
6. In order to demonstrate the continued usage of this term, we searched the terms “functional fitness and immigration” for all scholarship from 2011 to present. We found 12 articles (Cheah, Karamehic-Muratovic, Matsuo, & Poljarevic, Citation2011; Cheah, Karamehic-Muratovic, & Matsuo, Citation2013; Cho, Holbrook, & Johnson, Citation2013; Hotta & Ting-Toomey, Citation2013; Jones & Kim, Citation2013; Kim & McKay-Semmler, Citation2013; Lee, Citation2014; McKay-Semmler & Kim, Citation2014; Nzai & Feng, Citation2014; Oommen, Citation2014; Sandel, Citation2014) that used Kim's theory of functional fitness, and not one of these articles critically engages or questions the use of the term. While a fully developed criticism of these terms is beyond the scope of this project, it is well past time that scholars in the field of intercultural communication turn their gaze inward to explore the ways that their own discourse and assumptions reify disempowering and alienizing concepts of normality and functionality.
7. Hasian and Delgado's (Citation1998) article was part of the initial conversation about immigration rhetoric in communication.
8. For instance, widespread public discussion of the Dream Act and those who support it continues to this day and has existed for more than a dozen years.
9. See, also, Shome (Citation2006).
10. This is a commonly used term among new media scholars that accounts for both consumptive behavior and user generated content on websites such as Twitter or Facebook.
11. Kramer (Citation2000) discusses Gudykunst and Kim's (Citation1997) theory of adaptation as one of “model minority functionalism.”
12. Clearly, the concept of functional fitness is underdeveloped and undertheorized, but we respond to it anyway so that, hopefully, through our response, more can be understood about it. Kramer examines Gudykunst and Kim (Citation1997) critically, specifically challenging their theory of adaptation, which insists that in order to achieve satisfaction, subjects necessarily have to act and react appropriately using their social and technical skills (193). He, too, mentions the lack of discussion of resistance, rebellion, and deviance. The theory of “fitness” is also problematic in that it implies that those who are “unfit” must change, that there is something wrong with the way they are, and that they must change in order to be “competent.” A theory of immigrant ability and disability is an invaluable way to think through immigration as we suggest here, but it is beyond the scope of this article to fully develop such a theory.
13. For a detailed discussion of the history of the emergence of intercultural communication training within the Foreign Service Institute, see Leeds-Hurwitz (Citation1990).
14. The concepts of “host” and “assimilation” are (we argue) outdated concepts (even as they are still used in scholarship), in part because there is no clear distinction between being a “guest” and being a “host” (or an identifiable point at which that shift takes place) and because, as many have argued, assimilation is often a process of social pressure to conform, based on an assumption that the colonial culture is superior to that of migrants and that new migrants necessarily desire to change to adapt to it.
15. It is important to clarify that we see assimilation being something a society does to people within it and not an agentic phenomenon that members of society, including migrants, do. Migrants adapt; societies assimilate migrants, or try to. Assimilation is a social process often experienced as pressure exerted on members of society to conform to normative social expectations.
16. Using GoogleScholar, and searching for the book, Becoming Intercultural: An Integrative Theory of Communication and Cross-Cultural Adaptation (Kim, Citation2001), we found 140 citations “since 2012,” 49 of those being “since 2013,” (albeit many in international and intercultural relations journals and fewer in communication ones) suggesting scholars, especially scholars outside of the field, continue to reference it.
17. McKay-Semmler and Kim's (Citation2014) position is different from Kim's earlier work, however. In their article, they speak more in terms of acculturation, and less of assimilation, and regards influence as dialogical, acknowledging that “acculturative change is a process of mutual influence between hosts and newcomers in the long-term” (p. 137). This, however, seems to contradict an earlier statement in the article, when they write, “Researchers have used various terms, including ‘integration,’ ‘assimilation,’ ‘acculturation,’ and ‘adjustment’ to refer to what Kim argues is essentially the same process undergone by any stranger entering an unfamiliar cultural environment” (p. 136), which implies there are no meaningful differences between, say, acculturation and assimilation.
18. The framing of the theory makes an unwarranted value judgment on the cognitive ability and personal “strength” of people unwilling or unable to adjust. According to Kim (Citation2001, p. 89), “Humans have an innate self-organizing drive and a capacity to adapt to environmental challenges.”