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Notes -
What would your metric for this be? As far as I can tell, contemporary immigrants are assimilating just as fast or faster than historically as measured by things like language or intermarriage rates (e.g. my German ancestors moved to Iowa in the 1850s and didn't stop speaking German until WWI killed off German American subculture).
That's common with second generation immigrants everywhere (again, as far as I can tell) - first gen immigrants don't necessarily fit in as well, but they chose to uproot their lives and move to a different country, so they're eager to make it work. Second gen immigrants are more likely to be in an awkward limbo were they don't quite fit into their country of birth (often exacerbated by racism from their peers) and didn't choose it. For some, their parents' country of origin takes on conceptual role similar to how some adoptees treat their (unmet/absent) biological parents. Cue a soul-searching trip to the old country where they find out it kind of sucks and also they don't fit in even a little.
It seems like the US census information for bilingualism etc for 2nd gen immigrants doesn't start until 1940 (only for either 1st gen or those unable to speak English before that), which is of course after many of the European immigrant groups of the late 1800s and early 1900s had pretty well assimilated.
That is to say while this was not revealed to me in a dream, take this as basically my unsupported impressions from 1st gen immigrants vs 2nd gen immigrants in the 16-35 age range vs 2nd gen immigrants in the 50-80 age range (which of course also opens up the possibility that the older group are simply more assimilated due to age rather than anything generational) rather than any sort of rigorous analysis.
My own impressions are that children of immigrants are a lot more likely to claim a foreign identity than they used to be, but without actually having one. In their eyes, their parents' culture consists of a handful of traditional foods that trigger their childhood nostalgia, a colorful outfit they wear once or twice for an instagram photoshoot, a language they speak at best at the level of an unschooled toddler, and if they are progressive enough the right to blame systemic racism for their challenges in life.
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