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News — The U.S. is – and long has been –  that contains large immigrant communities.

Yet migration is an actively debated but poorly understood topic, and much of the conventional thinking and political rhetoric about migration , .

For these reasons, migration policies and strategies for easing  – which refers to the psychological process of assimilating to a new culture – .

I often work with immigrant populations  as a family therapist and as an acculturation scholar.

Here are a few of the most common misconceptions I come across in my work.

1. Immigrants don’t want to learn English

The U.S. is home to more international migrants than any other country, and more than the next four countries – Germany, Saudi Arabia, Russia and the United Kingdom – combined,  from the U.N. Population Division. While the U.S. population represents about 5% of the total world population,  reside there.

An overwhelming number of these immigrants are learning English, .

Immigrants and their children learn English today  as Italians, Germans and Eastern Europeans who emigrated in the early 19th century.

, immigrant adults report having better English skills  And from 2009 to 2019, the percentage who could speak English “very well”  among first-generation immigrants.

2. Immigrants are uneducated

Contrary to popular belief that immigrants moving to the U.S. , many of them are well educated.

Over the past five years, 48% of arriving immigrants have been classified as highly skilled – that is, . By comparison, only 33% of those born in the U.S. .

Moreover, the pursuit of higher education is valued and encouraged in immigrant communities, particularly those that arrived from collectivist societies, which are commonplace in the countries of South Asia. Immigrants from these places tend to prioritize  and the joy that comes from attaining an educational milestone.

That doesn’t mean highly educated immigrants can easily slide into high-paying jobs. Many of them find themselves working in menial jobs that don’t require a degree,  remains a key issue in the U.S. today.

3. The best way to adapt is to embrace US culture

For decades, acculturation studies have highlighted the importance of immigrants’ embracing American culture. Policymakers, therapists and educators who offered services to immigrants adhered to , which encouraged immigrants to adapt to their host country by severing themselves from the culture of their homelands.

Then, in 1987, psychologist John Berry proposed  outlining new strategies.

, immigrants should strive to retain elements of their original cultural identity while also adopting a new cultural identity that folds in American culture and values.

Today, Berry’s model is the most commonly used to understand acculturation.

However, although the model acknowledges that acculturation strategies may evolve over time, it doesn’t take into account the emerging forms of , which refers to immigrants who live in another country but also maintain strong ties to their home country.

Technological advances have made it far . There are also U.S. cities, neighborhoods and towns where immigrant communities  – places like Hialeah, Florida, where Cubans and Cuban Americans , and , which has growing numbers of Indian immigrants.

For immigrants living in these “,” there’s less of an obligation to undergo a transformative process of acculturation, whether it’s by  or not teaching children their home country’s language.

Still, many immigrants nonetheless feel pressured to downplay their backgrounds. While conducting interviews with members of the Turkish community in Chicago, I spoke with many people who admitted that they weren’t comfortable flaunting their Turkish culture. This didn’t surprise me. Immigrants are often exposed to new sets of prejudices and biases, and they fear not being able to access services such as medical care and education.

This fear reinforces the urge to assimilate into the dominant culture’s values – which, in America,  like independence – and suppress their own cultural values, such as being family-oriented. It’s essentially .

In my work, I found that immigrants who engaged in what’s called “” – behaving in ways that may soften their ethnic and cultural expression – had the hardest time adapting to their new home.

For those reasons, it is crucial for social workers, therapists, teachers and policymakers who work with immigrant families to focus on the tensions among acculturation, ethnic identity and well-being.

, PhD Candidate in Couple and Family Therapy, .

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