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Mary C. Waters Pluralist Theory Summary

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Countless numbers of immigrants came over to the United States many generations ago, in order to pursue the “American Dream”. Mary C. Waters specializes in studying immigration and ethnic trends, and wanted to research how connected American citizens of foreign descent were to their ethnicity. In Waters’ writing, she talks about how she interviewed many third-generation Americans of European descent in order to determine how closely tied they were to their ancestors’ ethnicity in the late 20th century. Out of the two theories of integration, being the pluralist theory and the assimilationist theory, Waters takes a new middle-ground standpoint on something she calls “new ethnicity”. Waters concludes that with passing generations, American immigrants …show more content…

Waters took notice of how interesting it could be to study some of these people and how the new landscapes and environments can have affect on their original beliefs or practices. Waters finds that throughout generations of immigrants and then descendants that individuals are most likely to take on her proposed theory of “new ethnicity/Dime-store ethnicity.” Her research was performed in the late 20th century and was strongly reinforced by what I found within my interviewing process in the present time of the 21st century. Ethnicity is an extremely important and apparent factor in our society that some overlook far too easily. It surrounds us everyday and can teach us an immense amount about the world. It is extremely interesting to observe all of the people that have taken on the title of “new ethnicity” without even being aware of it because it brings everyone in the area closer through similar practices and leaves room for one’ ethnicity to remain unique with their original ethnicity still being apparent. Waters did a great job of demonstrating the prevalence of her two proposed theories and through my interview it is obvious that these theories are extremely observable relevant to the present

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