T 1290.pdf - Pondicherry University DSpace Portal

states brinqlnq the immigrant population to over fifty million.Europe LS no longer the chlef supplier of immigrants tothe Unlted States. The lead has passed to Asia and LatinAmerica. The sltuatlon 1s st111 fluld and more and more peopleare reaching America. Even in the 1990fs, every day thestatistics 1s getting out-dated. Nationwide, they have changedthe ethnlc mrx of most metropolitan centres. In Greater LosAngeles alone, over the last twenty flve years, whlle theHispanlc presence has Increased three-fold, the Aslans havebecome ten-fold. Currently, the United States has more visiblenumber of lmmlgrants of various stocks than any other countryIn modern hlstory. Among the homes of one flfth of Los Anqelesschool chlldran, Ertc~llsll 1s second to a hundred and fourdifferent ancestral languages.Perhaps, no summlnq-up, metaphorical or otherwise, can dojustice to the complex ~nter-play between Immigration andNatlonal Character. Conveniently, these lmmiqrations may be putlnto four categorles. The Total Identlflers, who llve out theirllves entlrely wlthin the ethnlc group; the PartialIdentlflers, who take thelr ethnlclty In measured and selectivedoses; the Dlsafflllates, who grow-up ln ethnlc or ethnorellqlousnelqhbourhoods, but cannot go home aqaln because theyhave chosen not to, and the Hybrlds, who cannot Identify