Jacqueline Rioja Velarde did an excellent job presenting about the rapidly growing role Latinas play in the United States and specifically in Ohio. From her talk, I was most intrigued by the process of assimilation that people go through as they come to the United States. First, they start with the Separation stage in which they completely retain their own heritage and resist the host culture. The second stage is Assimilation where they discard their heritage culture and adopt the host culture. The final stage is Integration where they retain their heritage culture at the same time as they include host culture. I find this process to be one in which immigrants work more and more towards finding the compromise situation towards remembering where they came from and completely being able to successfully function in the new contexts. I think that this process explains a lot of what immigrants are going through as they respond to culture shock and all of the unexpected differences as they come to the US. My question to further this conversation is: Does each generation of latinos go through all 3 stages or is it only the first generation of immigrants that goes through exactly this process?
I would have liked to hear more from the speaker to address immigration and how in Ohio it has been confronted or embraced.
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