In some cases, the national origin may also define a church affiliation. In these cases, the religious and the ethic identities reinforce each other improving the chances of survival. Some assiduously seek assimilation and eventually acquire the culture, habits and even the prejudices of the host community giving up their native language, dress, and diet as well as the observance of religious customs. However, because the host community continues to regard all persons of one skin color as a single distinct minority group, this group finds social assimilation to be elusive. Other South-Asians are willing to accommodate, adjust and adapt in respect of dress, diet and language and even acculturize but retain their links to the parent country and religion and attempt to pass these on to the next generation through the establishment of ethnic and religious subsystems.
Many ethnic subsystems take the form of population concentrations.
On occasions the majority has acted deliberately to exclude the immigrant and even the following generations from the mainstream. They were not allowed to bring their spouses from Punjab and if they married an American citizen, she would lose her citizenship by such marriage. They had been declared ineligible to acquire citizenship and land laws provided that aliens ineligible for citizenship could not buy, own, or lease agricultural land. Many married catholic Mexican women and their children grew up as catholics. Social interaction with the host community was limited by language.