STRANGERS NO MORE

[??] e Challenges of Integration

Immigration is transforming Western Europe and North America. The origins of this massive inflow date back to the middle of the twentieth century, a period of recovery and expansion after the devastations of worldwide economic depression and war. The numbers are astounding. The United States has the largest foreign-born population of any country in the world, with around forty million immigrants (as of 2012), while the combined member states of the European Union are home to approximately 50 million people who have moved across borders and are living outside the country of their birth. In the United States, immigrants and their children account for nearly a quarter of the population, and the figure is even higher in Canada; in the largest Western European countries, it is generally about a fifth.

If the numbers are impressive, their implications are even more remarkable. Western Europe, on one side of the Atlantic, and the United States and Canada, on the other, all have to deal with incorporating millions of immigrants whose cultures, languages, religions, and racial backgrounds often differ starkly from those of most long-established residents. In Europe, societies that previously thought of themselves as homogeneous have seen the rise of ethnic, religious, and racial diversity. In Canada and the United States, immigration has long been part of the national story, but immigrants now hail from new places and are seen, in racial and ethnic terms, as more different than ever before.

How European and North American societies are to meet the challenges of this new diversity is one of the key issues of the twenty-first century. A central question is how to integrate immigrants and their children so that they become full members of the societies where they now live. Full membership means having the same educational and work opportunities as long-term native-born citizens, and the same chances to better their own and their children's lot. It also means having a sense of dignity and belonging that comes with acceptance and inclusion in a broad range of societal institutions. The struggle for inclusion is likely to become ever more intense in the coming decades in the context of shifting demographics in Europe and North America. There is every sign that there will be a continued demand for immigration, creating inflows of new arrivals in the years ahead, and, at the same time, young people of immigrant origin will constitute a larger and larger share of young adults.

The challenges of integration are complicated by the widespread resistance of natives to immigrants and their children. There are anxieties about whether the newcomers will fit in and fears that they will undermine the basic foundations of established ways of life. These concerns are prominent in popular writings and the media. They are evident in opinion polls. They feature in some academic writings. And they have been voiced and exploited by politicians.

A widely acclaimed 2009 book by journalist Christopher Caldwell, Reflections on the Revolution in Europe, argues that immigration there is exacting a "steep price in freedom" and bringing "disorder, penury, and crime." Princeton Islamic scholar Bernard Lewis has said that by the end of this century Europe will be "part of the Arab West, the Maghreb." On the other side of the Atlantic, massive waves of Hispanic immigration, according to the late Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington, are eroding America's national identity, and, if continued, will turn the United States into a country of two languages, two cultures, and two peoples without a shared historic cultural core. In the American media, Mexican immigrants and their children are often portrayed as unwilling to integrate—"unassimilable separatists"—and as a threat to existing institutions.

National opinion polls reveal a high level of concern. About half of Americans and Europeans polled in a 2011 survey said that immigration is more of a problem than an opportunity. Anxieties about newcomers' ability to integrate have spilled over into the political sphere as well. In Europe, anti-immigrant rhetoric is a staple of right-wing politicians and political parties. In 2014, France's xenophobic National Front came in a head of all the country's other parties in the European Parliament elections with a quarter of the vote. The Netherlands' Geert Wilders, who has called for an end to Muslim immigration and the banning of the Koran, was voted the second most popular politician in his country in two national polls in 2009; and his Party for Freedom topped the polls four years later. In the United States, nativistic fears have been pivotal in many state and local elections, especially in places like Arizona, at or near the border with Mexico.

This book gets behind the rhetoric, exaggerations, and fear-mongering to examine what is really happening and why. The core issue is the integration of immigrants and their children. We approach this issue through a comparative—transatlantic—perspective.

As one might expect, the comparison reveals parallels as well as differences in how immigrants and their children are faring in Europe and North America and in the opportunities provided within different institutional arenas. But it does more than this. The value of comparing societies is that it enables us to spot where integration seems to be proceeding successfully and where it is not. Systematic comparison is essential, we believe, if lessons are to be drawn from the experience with immigration in diverse societies. Indeed, comparison lends itself to exploring ideas about borrowings, or features of institutions in one or more societies that appear worthy of emulation in another.

Comparisons cast differences into sharper relief; in particular, they bring out the distinctive ways that societies meet similar challenges of integration and shed light on unexpected outcomes. As a consequence, they give us new perspectives on each country and can offer new insights into each country's own internal dynamics. To paraphrase sociologist Reinhard Bendix, a comparative lens increases the visibility of processes and structures in one society by highlighting similarities and differences with another. It can reveal features that, because they are more or less "constant" within a society, like its political system, might otherwise be ignored or taken for granted. A comparative approach, as historian George Fredrickson observes, thereby enlarges our understanding of the institutions and processes being compared.

Comparing the European and North American immigrant experiences highlights an array of historically...