Though it might seem that immigrants are assimilating more slowly today than in the past, we may fail to recognize the rules have changed. What if newcomers no longer follow the traditional expectations of “love it or leave it”or “when in Rome, do as the Romans do?”These phrases ring of another time when adapting to the host country was the only option or else they were sometimes told to go back home.

A hundred years ago, home wasn’t available to go back home to. Immigrants didn’t have the financial or technological means or couldn’t return to their home countries because of political unrest.

Today, immigrants have more technological and financial resources more than ever before. The result is that they are often choosing both countries. They feel loyal to the country they left behind, and they identify with the country in which they have found a new home. This “Two for One Special”assimilation is due to a variety of global factors outside of any one country’s control: technological , financial, and increased mobility of the labor force.

1. High-Tech Tethers to the Home CountryThe Internet seems old but it’s really quite new. Only in the last fifteen years have e-mails, cell phones, telephone cards, and web cams caused a revolution in assimilation. Newcomers no longer get on a plane and are prepared to “leave everything and everyone behind” as they did before the Internet. This is in contrast to the early 20th century. Immigrants got off the boat back then, and seldom looked back except for an occasional letter to the old country.

Compare this to today, when newcomers call their families back home on a regular basis. When they want to actually see their families, they send pictures electronically. Or they see them in webcams, even touching them virtually with their hands to the screen to make them feel closer.

2. Money Ties
The constant channels of communication are not the only thing connecting the immigrant to the home country. Money ties are strong as well with an informal banking system of sending money home through Western Union Offices and other wire service.Which brings us back to why immigrants are coming. They come not just to work, because they most likely had some kind of job in their countries, but they came to earn U.S. dollars. Whole towns in the countryside are being transformed by the U.S. dollar in Latin America, which is one of the principle regions that is sending immigrants to the U.S. You see huge three-story homes are being built next to much more modest homes. These mansions are usually built by a family member living in the States who sends U.S. dollar- transfers on a monthly basis. This massive flow of American cash back to the immigrant’s home keeps their money ties to their home strong.

3. Dual Citizenship Offers Political Ties More and more countries are offering double citizenship. About half of the countries in the world, or an estimated 89 countries, allow dual citizenship now. No one knows for sure how many people have dual citizenship, because those statistics are not tracked.

The U.S. government does not endorse dual citizenship but tolerates it. People want a pair of passports for a variety of reasons: to broaden travel privileges, as a status symbol, a way to avoid estate taxes, to be able to vote for the president of their birth country through absentee ballots. As dual citizenships increase, older concepts of loyalty and patriotism will gradually disappear.

4. Increased Mobility
Fourth, immigrants are becoming more mobile. Some are even able to travel back and forth to their home country at least once a year. With cheap airfares, they can do this more easily than before. All of these factors add up to a new way of thinking and adjusting to the host country. An immigrant who is loyal not necessarily to one nation, but to two. Immigrants often embrace both worlds and find a kind of patriotism suited to their individual needs.

So it’s time to update our concept of assimilation and one national citizenship. All of us are dual citizens in a sense already. We are citizens of at least one nation, plus we are world citizens. Having a global perspective about immigration will help us understand newcomers as they arrive in our communities and make our neighborhoods more diverse. As we encourage them to participate in the local social institutions, we must also accept that many immigrants will likely keep strong ties to their country of origin.

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