Acculturation of Arab-American Immigrants: An Exploratory Study

As noted by Sporakowski (1993 : 299), "The United States has probably always been a country of immigrants and migrants. " Tavakoliyadzi goes further to describe the United States as having been historically ". a haven for immigrants (1981: 56). " Immigrants have come from many lands and have experienced various degrees of success in adopting to life in the United States. Although processes of acculturation have been studied for many immigrant groups, very little research has been conducted on factors related to acculturation among immigrants from Arabic speaking countries, even though Arab immigrants have been coming to the United States since at least 1854 (Miller, 1976) and may number more than two million today (Abraham. & Abraham, 1983). Between 1971 and 1992, inclusive of both years, nearly 600,000 immigrants came to the United States from Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, and Turkey (U.S. Census Bureau, 1994: 11). Some evidence suggests that many Arabs may find acculturation to be more difficult than have other immigrants, especially those affiliated with Islam. (who may represent less than half of Arab immigrants, however), which is a minority religion in the United States (Tavakoliyadzi, 1981: 27; Naff, 1983). For example, although she found that Middle Eastern, Eastern European, and Ethiopian immigrants were similar on many variables, Georgeski (1987) reported that higher percentages of her Middle Eastern subjects than other immigrants agreed with statements such as "In the U.S., there is no place I really belong," "lhe Arabs in the U.S. will never have the status that is equal to that of other Americans in the U.S.," "Arabs should stick together in order to keep company with each other and to be assured of mutual assistance in case of emergency," and "I expect tc return to my homeland to live someday," and also disagreed more often with statements like "It is desirable for Arabic boys and girls to marry with Americans. " Nevertheless, those Arabs affiliated with the Christian faith, who have immigrated to escape religious persecution in their homelands, may find life in.the United States less challenging (Hooglund & Aswad, 1987). The large number of Arab immigrants and the unique challenges they may face upon immigration highlight the importance of research on Arab-American acculturation, which also may be extremely relevant for public policy issues surrounding immigration (Sussman & Settles, 1993). In spite of difficulties with adjusting to life in the United States, many Arab immigrants have done well financially in the United States (ElBadry, 1994). The term acculturation first appeared about 1880 (Berry, 1980: 9) but has been much debated, particularly relative to the associated term assimilation. As Keefe notes, "Acculturation is one of those terms all social scientists use although few can agree upon its meaning (1980 : 85). " Likewise, Berry has said, "A good deal of confusion has surrounded the measurement of acculturation (1980: 12). " Some scholars define assimilation as the overarching concept, of which acculturation is a part (Richardson, 1967), whereas others define acculturation as the process of adapting to a new culture of which assimilation is one of several types of adaptation (Berry, 1980). For example, Berry (1980) identifies assimilation and integration as accepting modes of acculturating to a new culture, with the former involving loss of the former cultural identity, and the latter involving retention of former cultural identity. But Richardson describes a process of assimilation in which immigrants, in sequence, become satisfied with the new culture, eventually identify with the new culture, and finally reach an acculturation level wherein they have adopted major changes in their "attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors (1967 : 5). " Gordon (1964) analyzed the process in terms of seven types of assimilation without reference to acculturation. Here, we adopt Richardson's (1967) conceptualization of acculturation as one component of assimilation, though we agree with Szapocznik & Kurtines (1980), Padilla (1980a), and Keefe (1980) that assimilation is not a unidimensional process. …