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Social Work Practice with Immigrants and Refugees
Social Work Practice with Immigrants and Refugees
Social Work Practice with Immigrants and Refugees
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Social Work Practice with Immigrants and Refugees

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Social Work Practice with Immigrants and Refugees

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    Social Work Practice with Immigrants and Refugees - Columbia University Press

    CHAPTER 1

    SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE WITH IMMIGRANTS AND REFUGEES: AN OVERVIEW

    Pallassana R. Balgopal

    The purpose of this volume is to examine and develop the role of social workers serving new immigrants and refugees in the United States. New immigrants are considered in this text as those immigrants who entered the United States after 1965. In the past, old immigrants were the first groups that settled the country, and new immigrants were the Eastern and Southern Europeans arriving since the nineteenth century.

    Today’s immigrants represent much greater diversity with regard to country of origin, race and ethnicity, spoken language, religion, and, often, different value systems. In addition to Mexico, today’s arrivals come mostly from Asia, Central and Latin America, and the Caribbean. Where once there were Jewish pushcart peddlers, now there are Korean green grocers, Indian newsstand dealers, Ethiopian and Caribbean bus boys, Mexican and Central American gardeners and farmhands, Vietnamese fishermen, and Nigerian and Pakistani cab drivers. The presence of new immigrants, especially from the Asian countries, is particularly evident in the health-care and high-technology fields. In sum, the American landscape, both urban and rural, now reflects the faces and lifestyles of the new immigrants (Foner 1998).

    As table 1.1 shows, the composition of the immigrant population changed between the early 1800s and 1990s, making the United States a mosaic of multiculturalism. This drastic change in the immigrants’ profiles was a result of the passage of the Immigration and Nationalities Act of 1965. This act repealed the quotas for each country and instead set 20,000 immigrants per country in the Eastern Hemisphere and established a seven-category preference system based on family unification and skills. In 1976, the immigration act was amended to extend the 20,000-per-country limit to the Western Hemisphere. And in 1980, the Refugee Act was passed, establishing for the first time a permanent and systematic procedure for admitting refugees. Between 1820 and 1940, only a little more than one million immigrants came from Asia, whereas between 1970 and 1997, nearly seven million immigrants were from Asia. The number of immigrants from Mexico, Central and Latin America, and the Caribbean also dramatically increased. The highest number of immigrants continues to come from Mexico. Between 1994 and 1997, 511,763 legal Mexican immigrants were admitted. During this period, the other countries supplying great numbers of immigrants were the Philippines (209,512), China (172,323), Vietnam (163,683), and India (152,589) (U.S. INS 1999). The social welfare needs of these immigrant groups are often different from those of immigrants before 1965, so social work responsibilities have changed as well. In this text we take an ecological perspective, especially in regard to issues concerning direct and indirect practice, community work, policy, cultural diversity, social justice, oppression, populations at risk, and social work values and ethics. We systematically examine and analyze the data concerning new immigrants arriving in the United States after 1965 and explore ideas, concepts, and skills that can help social workers serving immigrant and refugee populations.

    The majority of today’s immigrants face many of the same problems that their predecessors encountered, as well as their own special needs, such as a focus on family closeness, on collectivism, and language barriers. For these reasons, social workers should obtain culture-specific knowledge and skills. This book includes a chapter on refugee populations and their needs to which social workers must be able to respond.

    UNDERSTANDING RECENT IMMIGRANTS AND REFUGEES

    Immigrants

    The United States has always been a land of immigrants, with the majority coming from Europe. The first immigrants were Protestants from the northern European continent. Then gradually, more and more Southern and Eastern Europeans began to migrate to the United States, along with people from Africa who were brought over as slaves. Then came immigrants from Asia and Latin America. At first, the Southern and Eastern European immigrants—from Italy, Greece, Poland, Portugal, Armenia, and the former Soviet Union—were shunned by the dominant class of white Protestant Americans. Accordingly, passage of the Immigration Restriction Act of 1924 welcomed the Northern and Western Europeans while limiting the entry of the Southern and Eastern Europeans (Greenbaum 1974:424). But the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which replaced the 1924 act, opened the doors to all. Many immigrants of various races, cultures, and countries of origin then entered the United States, and their presence has enhanced the nation. Eventually, acceptance gave way to the entrance, or attempt to enter, of the Asian and Latin American populations, such as Brazilians, Cubans, and Mexicans. Asian immigrants arrived from India, Indochina, China, the Philippines, Korea, and Vietnam, to name a few countries of origin. Table 1.1 describes the change in demographics from the 1800s to 1997. Note that in between 1971 and 1997, the number of Asian, Central and Latin American, and African immigrants greatly increased compared with their number between 1941 and 1970 and the number of European immigrants.

    TABLE 1.1

    Immigrants Admitted by Region: Fiscal Years 1820–1997

    Refugees

    Those people who have relocated to the United States for reasons different from those of the immigrants are refugees and asylees. According to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, a refugee is an alien outside the United States who is unable or unwilling to return to his or her country of nationality because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution (1997:72). Thus, refugees are persons who flee their country of origin for fear of persecution or oppression due to political, religious, or national reasons or membership in certain social groups. Refugees, however, are often discriminated against and rejected, which makes it difficult for them to become part of U.S. society. Kim’s 1989 study of Southeast Asian refugees between 1975 and 1979 showed that they did not feel accepted and were concerned about their future in the United States. In addition, most of the respondents stated that they did not agree that I feel that the Americans that I know like me (p. 93).

    The Refugee Act of 1980 (Public Law 96-212, 94 Statute 102) amended both the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952¹ and the Migration and Refugee Assistance Act of 1962.² Its goal was to create a more uniform basis for providing aid to refugees. The act established specific guidelines for who could be admitted to this country, and when; whether they could bring their spouse and children; and the processes of asylum and deportation. Currently, refugees may work in the United States and may apply for permanent residency after living in this country for one year. They are eligible to receive welfare assistance immediately upon entering, unlike those legal immigrants not considered refugees, who must wait five years before becoming eligible. The number of applications for refugee status filed with the INS rose by 9 percent from 1995 (143,223) to 1996 (155,868). Most of the applicants were from Vietnam (45 percent), the former Soviet Union (25 percent), Bosnia-Herzegovina (12 percent), and Somalia (9 percent). The number of refugees arriving in the United States fell from 98,520 in 1995 to 74,791 in 1996. The main reason for this decline is the smaller number of Vietnamese refugees (U.S. INS 1997).

    Asylees are refugees already in the United States when they file for protection. An asylee is an alien in the United States who is unable or unwilling to return to his or her country of nationality because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution (U.S. INS 1997:77). Only 10,000 asylees may be accepted as legal permanent residents each year; otherwise they have the same benefits as refugees. U.S. refugee and asylee laws are based on the premise that it is this country’s policy to respond to the urgent needs of persons being persecuted in their countries of origin, that the United States should provide opportunities for resettlement or voluntary repatriation, as well as necessary transportation and processing (Miller and Miller 1996:115). In addition, the United States encourages other nations to assist refugees as much as they can. Nonetheless, certain groups of asylees are not readily admitted into the United States. For example, Miller and Miller (1996) reported that Haitians, Salvadorans, and Guatemalans have been restricted from entering the United States despite the threat of persecution in their homelands. In 1985, of the 6,000 applications by Iranians, 63 percent were granted asylum, most of whom were students already in this country. But of 668 Haitian applicants, only 0.5 percent were accepted; of 409 Guatemalan applicants, 1.2 percent were accepted; and of 2,107 Salvadoran applicants, 5 percent were granted asylum. Why are certain nationalities accepted and others are not? Perhaps the Iranian students are likely to complete their degree and to become employed. And perhaps the Haitians have fewer job skills and may be more dependent on the United States’ welfare system. Are ethnicity and race important to determining who is allowed to come to the United States?

    Illegal Immigrants

    Illegal immigration began slowly at first in the 1870s, increased slightly by the 1920s, and peaked after passage of the Immigration Act of 1965. Currently, in order to enter the United States, one must be a relative of a U.S. citizen or a permanent resident alien or have skills, education, or job experience needed in the United States or be a political refugee. Accordingly, with so many immigrants and so few nonpreference visas available, it often seems easier to enter illegally. Miller and Miller found that by the mid-1970s, the problem with illegal immigrants was generally considered to be out of control (1996:27). The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (1997) reported that in October 1996, about 5 million undocumented or illegal immigrants were residing in the United States. Mexico is identified as the leading country of origin, with 2.7 million, or 54 percent, of the illegal immigrants. Indeed, more than 80 percent of illegal immigrants are from countries in the Western Hemisphere.

    Illegal immigrants are those people who enter this country without proper documentation or with expired visas or passports. Such immigrants may also include those who enter the United States as migrant workers and then stay beyond their employment dates. In addition, many undocumented Salvadorans, Guatemalans, and Haitians are from lower socioeconomic classes with little education (Rumbaut 1994b:613). For people like them, the implications of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) are devastating. Furthermore, the states are prohibited from offering state or local benefits to most illegal immigrants, unless the state law was enacted after August 22, 1996 (the day the bill was enacted) that explicitly makes illegal aliens eligible for the aid (Katz 1996:2701). However, a state may provide school lunches to children of illegal immigrants if they are already eligible under that state’s law for free public education. And a state may provide other benefits related to child nutrition and emergency food assistance. Ironically, though, a state may opt not to offer prenatal care to pregnant illegal immigrants.

    For example, California’s Proposition 187 denies reproductive services to illegal immigrant women, as well as public education to the children of illegal immigrants. In addition, citizenship is denied to the children of illegal immigrants who are born in the United States, a reversal of the Fourteenth Amendment, which automatically grants citizenship to anyone born in the United States. According to Roberts (1996), there is a rising fear in America that the country will be overrun by darker-skinned people. Because the majority of immigrants, both legal and illegal, entering the United States are not white, limits are being set on who can get prenatal care and education in this nation. As mentioned earlier, Haitians and Mexicans are usually undocumented and usually darker skinned, and they seem to be the ones not receiving prenatal care.

    The reasons that people flee their country vary, but most of the refugees and asylees who meet the U.S. definition of a refugee or asylee are escaping a communist takeover or some other communist-related regime. For example, large numbers of people from Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fled the communist takeover of their countries. The INS reported that between 1981 and 1987, 465,827 refugees from this group were granted asylum and permanent residency. In addition, 38,214 persons from the Soviet Union were granted permanent residency during this same time period. Nicaraguans fled their homeland to escape the civil war against the leftist regime, and Haitians wanted to live in the United States instead of under their right-wing military regime (Portes and Rumbaut 1990:244).

    The socioeconomic classes of refugees also have changed through the years. In the early to mid-1950s, the Cuban refugees escaping Fidel Castro’s forces were mainly from the middle and upper classes. In fact, Miller and Miller (1996:2) estimated that more than 50 percent of its [Cuba’s] doctors and teachers entered the United States in a two-year period. Eventually, though, most of the Cuban refugees were boat people, the Marielitos, who were less well educated and from the working class."

    A BRIEF HISTORY OF AMERICAN IMMIGRATION

    Most of the earliest immigrants to the United States were Anglo-Saxon Protestants, whose attitude toward other immigrants was mixed. On the one hand, the immigrants were needed to develop the new country, but on the other hand, the Protestants did not welcome the impoverished Catholics from Germany, especially when they moved into the Midwest to farm their own lands, thus taking over a large piece of the United States.

    During this time, these immigrants forced the Native Americans out of their lands and homes. Before Columbus’s arrival in the New World, it is estimated that the population of Native Americans was as large as 12 million. But by 1880, after years of genocide and wars, this number had fallen to about 250,000 (Karger and Stoesz 1994). Lack of immunity to European diseases, displacement from their lands, systematic starvation, widespread killing in war, and cold-blooded murder account for this dramatic drop in the Native American population. Between 1950 and 1990, however, the Native American population again grew by 1.6 million, and by 1994, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated the population of Native Americans at 2.2 million. In addition to the natural increase are the Census Bureau’s methodological improvements in the way it counts people on reservations in trust lands and Native Alaskan villages and the increase in indigenous people, including mixed Indians and non-Indian parents reporting themselves as American Indians (Shinagawa and Jang 1998).

    The African slaves were brought to the United States to work on the expanding plantations and vast lands; they were not freed until the late 1800s. They were not permitted to vote until the early 1900s, and not until 1964 with the passage of the Civil Rights Act were they accorded the rights and privileges available to other American citizens. The most obvious difference between the early immigrants and the African slaves is that the latter group had no choice in their immigration. They were brought into this country by force to help in its development but were forbidden, for centuries to come, to reap the rewards for their efforts. In 1790 when the first U.S. census was taken, African Americans numbered about 750,000. By 1860 their number had increased to 4.4 million, but except for 488,000 counted as freemen and freewomen, the majority were still slaves. By 1992 the African American population had grown to 31.4 million, and it is projected that by year 2000 this population will be around 35 million (Shinagawa and Jang 1998:23).

    Along with the influx of immigrants, policies were passed to regulate it. Some of the laws were overtly discriminatory, while others were more subtle. The Alien Act of 1798 was the first Federal law pertinent to immigration rather than naturalization (U.S. INS 1997:A. 1-1). This act allowed the president to arrange for the arrest or deportation of any person who appeared dangerous to the country. It also provided that aliens arriving by ships were to be reported by the captain to U.S. Customs. In 1819, the Steerage Act required that all vessels entering the United States supply a list of their passengers to Congress, and some restrictions were placed on the numbers of people leaving or entering U.S. ports. By 1862, discrimination against the Chinese was rampant. Coolies, as the Chinese workers were called, were prohibited from being transported by ship or boat. In 1870, although Africans and African Americans could now be naturalized, the Chinese were excluded. The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service’s Statistical Yearbook reports that under the 1875 policy, permission was needed to bring in Oriental persons (1997:A. 1-2).

    The 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, a very restrictive piece of legislation, prevented Chinese workers from entering the United States for ten years, and those who were caught and were in the country illegally were immediately deported. Most important, those Chinese already in the United States were not allowed to become naturalized citizens.

    National quotas were instituted in the 1920s. For example, Spanish immigrants were limited to a quota of 252 yearly, Greeks to 308, Portuguese to 440, and Italians to 5,000. Thus it was not only Asian and Latin American immigrants who were oppressed and discriminated against, but anyone who was not a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant.

    In 1943, the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed, and by the 1950s, the Japanese Exclusion Act of 1924 was repealed. In 1952, a ceiling of 150,000 was set for non-Western countries, with preferences for highly skilled persons. Finally, by 1965, all quotas were abolished when the Immigration Act was passed. Immigration was no longer dependent on national origin, race, or ancestry. The Immigration Act introduced a seven-category preference system by which immigrants related to U.S. citizens or permanent residents were issued visas on a first come, first serve basis, favoring those with occupational skills or training needed in the United States.

    In 1980, the Refugee Act was passed, separating refugee admissions from immigration, with refugees offered certain medical and social services. By 1986, the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) granted amnesty to almost three million undocumented people and established new ways of regulating undocumented immigration. For example, employers were fined for hiring illegal immigrants. Then the Immigration Act of 1990 raised to 650,000 the number of immigrants permitted entry for employment and family reunification. In 1996, President Clinton signed major welfare reforms into law. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) does not give legal immigrants (legal permanent residents) the right to receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or food stamp vouchers. Rather, it states that legal permanent residents may receive such benefits if they have paid Social Security taxes and have worked in the United States for a minimum of ten years.

    Underlying all this discrimination and outright prejudice, both overt and covert, is a possible explanation. Although discrimination and prejudice can never be justified, we can try to clarify or understand the theoretical foundation for what happened during the early to later years of immigration: the reason is Anglo conformity. For the major legislative milestones in U.S. immigration history, see table 1.2. From 1882 until 1924, U.S. immigration policies focused on excluding persons on qualitative grounds, such as prostitution and physical and mental illness. The first quantitative restriction was imposed in 1924. The inclusionary era in immigration policy began in 1965 and continued until 1996 when the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act was passed, adversely affecting both legal and illegal immigrants and refugees.

    Anglo Conformity

    With the arrival of the European settlers, the African slaves, and the force against the Native Americans, the Anglo-conformist viewpoint dawned in the United States. This ideology became the hopeful foundation for the Americanization of all future newcomers. Milton Gordon described Anglo conformity as a broad term used to cover a variety of viewpoints about assimilation and immigration; they all assume the desirability of maintaining English institutions (as modified by the American Revolution), the English language, and English-oriented cultural patterns as dominant and standard in American life (1978:246).

    TABLE 1.2

    Major Legislative Milestones in U.S. Immigration History

    Chinese Exclusion Act (1882): Suspends immigration of Chinese laborers for ten years; provides for deportation of Chinese illegally in United States.

    Immigration Act of 1891: As first comprehensive law for national control of immigration, establishes Bureau of Immigration under Treasury; directs deportation of aliens unlawfully in country.

    Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1924: Imposes first permanent numerical limit on immigration; establishes national-origins quota system, resulting in biased admissions favoring northern and western Europeans.

    Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1952: Continues national-origins quota and imposes quota for skilled aliens whose services are urgently needed.

    Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1965: Repeals national-origins quota system; establishes seven-category preference system based on family unification and skills; sets 20,000-per-country limit for Eastern Hemisphere.

    Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1976: Extends 20,000-per-country limit to Western Hemisphere.

    Refugee Act of 1980: Sets up first permanent and systematic procedure for admitting refugees; removes refugees as a category from preference system; defines refugees according to international, versus ideological, standards; establishes process of domestic resettlement; codifies asylum status.

    Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986: Institutes employer sanctions for knowingly hiring illegal aliens; creates legalization programs; tightens border enforcement.

    Immigration Act of 1990: Increases legal immigration ceilings by 40 percent; triples employment-based immigration, emphasizing skills; creates diversity admissions category; establishes temporary protected status for those in the U.S. jeopardized by armed conflict or natural disasters in their native country.

    Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996:Adversely affects legal and illegal immigrants and refugees; makes legal immigrants ineligible for SSI and food stamps until becoming citizens.

    Source: Adapted from M. Fix and J. S. Passel, Immigration and Immigrants: Setting the Record Straight (Washington, DC: Urban Institute, 1994), 11.

    The terms assimilation and Americanization have been used interchangeably. In the early part of the twentieth century, most of the Anglo-American population wanted the new groups of European immigrants to be assimilated. In fact, except for the white Southern and Eastern European immigrants, it was ordered—that Mexicans, Asians, and blacks would remain culturally separate (Bouvier 1992:111). Even Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson held anticultural pluralism attitudes. Indeed, President Wilson was recorded as saying: Any man who thinks [of] himself as belonging to a particular national group in America has not yet become an American (p. 111).

    The Americanization movement encouraged the adoption of Anglo-conformist ideals, as the Anglo conformists apparently could not understand that the newer immigrants could adjust to their new home while at the same time preserving their cultural ethnic, religious, and linguistic background. What occurred next, therefore, was a transition from one ideological base to another, from Anglo conformity into the melting pot perspective.

    The Melting Pot

    The melting pot theory has been described as more generous [than Anglo conformity] and [with] idealistic overtones …[which] has its adherents and exponents from the eighteenth century onward (Gordon 1964:249). Israel Zangwill, author of the 1908 play The Melting Pot, depicted a young Russian-Jewish composer who, after migrating to America, dreams of completing a symphony

    Which will express his deeply felt conception of his adopted country as a

    Divinely appointed crucible in which all the ethnic division of mankind

    Will divest themselves of their ancient animosities and differences and become

    Fused into one group, signifying the brotherhood of man.

    (p. 251)

    When this drama was written, the United States consisted primarily of white Europeans. The white immigrants from countries other than England were similar in many ways to the dominant group. Either they spoke or learned to speak English, or their customs and cultural attitudes did not greatly diverge from the Anglo-Saxon norms. But when Asians, Latin Americans, Africans, and other nonwhite and non-English-speaking immigrants came to the United States, the great Melting Pot where all the races of Europe are melting and reforming (Gordon 1964:251) no longer applied. This country became, and still is, the destination for people from all over the world. Europe was not the only continent of origin; Africa, Asia, and Latin America also sent their share of diversified peoples. Ramakrishnan and Balgopal stated that owing to the prevalence of Anglo conformity, it became very difficult for ethnic groups that were ethnically and racially different, such as, the Chinese, Japanese, African American, Hispanics, and Native Americans to melt in the American crucible (1995:17). The idea of assimilation thus underlay the melting pot theory. It was not easy to become welded to or assimilated into American society, as previously assumed. Although the melting pot idea promoted assimilation, in reality it was the dominant group that determined the acceptable values and customs. If minority cultural groups attempted to retain or cling to their traditions, they were seen as unassimilable or sometimes even deviant.

    Assimilation

    The melting pot ideology emphasizes assimilation and blending, and the dominant Anglo group in the new United States provided the principal value structure to which all the other groups were expected to adhere. The preservation of their ethnic and cultural heritages was not encouraged. In other words, cultural assimilation meant that members of minority groups were to adopt the cultural norms of the dominant group. Epps observed that traditionally, American society has been willing to accept culturally different peoples if they were willing to become acculturated and reject their cultural distinctiveness (1974:15). Despite the negative aspects of the assimilation process, it did make some positive contributions. For instance, the development and preservation of a national identity through assimilation helped create a common American culture.

    Numerous scholars have defined assimilation. Walker defined it as a more specific process, [which] consists of structural and organizations absorption of formerly autonomous institutions or members of one society by another (1972:1). Gordon’s definition of assimilation is as follows: Assimilation is a process of interpretation and future in which persons and groups acquire the memories, sentiments, and attitudes of other persons or groups, and, by sharing their experience and history, are incorporated with them in a common cultural life (1964:62). The acquisition of the memories … and attitudes of other persons is essential to the assimilation or Americanization process. In order to be assimilated or blended into a dominant group, one must be willing and able to conform and thus remove one’s original cultural and ethnic background. In essence, one must be able to forget one’s heritage, family, and previous lifestyle, as if in a type of forced amnesia. Gordon (1964) also pointed out that assimilation takes place at two levels, the structural level and the behavioral level. Behavioral assimilation (often known as acculturation) applies to minority persons whose behavior must conform to the dominant group’s norms. In other words, their behavior becomes more like that of the dominant group because if the minority persons’ behavior stands out, they are seen as different and as not belonging to the mainstream. To avoid being identified as foreign, minority members assimilate behaviorally. Although this type of assimilation takes place on a behavioral level, it does not necessarily occur at a structural level.

    In order to assimilate structurally, individuals must have equal access to membership in the society’s institutions and other kinds of decision-making structures. But even if minorities do adapt behaviorally, they will not necessarily be accepted into the dominant group’s institutions. For example, even if legal permanent residents have the ability or desire to assimilate behaviorally, they do not have the right to vote until they become citizens. And they cannot become citizens until they have been married for three years to a U.S. citizen or have resided in the United States continuously for five years (Morse 1994). This lack of citizenship has contributed to the isolation of immigrants (Morse 1994:57). Furthermore, without the right to vote, immigrants cannot be represented on local, state, and national levels.

    Another example of why behavioral assimilation does not necessarily guarantee structural assimilation concerns female immigrants who are married to U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents and who are victims of domestic violence. In the past, such women were not protected and risked losing custody of their children and being deported to their home country. Now, however, the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), part of the Violent Crime and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (Pub. L. No. 103-322, 108 State. 1796), protects women waiting for their permanent residency. Wheeler states that according to the VAWA, such women may petition for residency if they are

    (1) abused spouses and children of U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents,

    (2) nonabused spouses who are parents of abused children of U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents, and (3) abused spouses of U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents and their nonabused children, even if the children are not related to the U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident abuser.

    (1996:223)

    Currently, a number of shelters for victims of domestic violence have been opened to specific ethnic groups. For example, shelters particularly for Asian American women take into account their cultural customs and lifestyles.

    Behavioral and structural assimilation is especially difficult for those immigrants arriving in the United States since 1965. Immigrants from Africa, Asia, and Latin America are especially negatively affected by structural assimilation. They may be able to learn the dominant society’s language, social expectations, and norms, but at the same time, they are denied advancement in the political and economic

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