Acculturation Orientations and Social Relations Between Immigrant and Host Community Members in California

Abstract

This study, based on the Interactive Acculturation Model, investigates the acculturation orientations of undergraduates attending a multicultural university in Los Angeles County. European Americans ( n = 178), African Americans ( n = 88), Asian immigrants ( n = 165), and Hispanic immigrants ( n = 109) participated in the questionnaire study. Results show that individualism and integrationism are the acculturation orientations preferred by European American, African American, and Asian immigrants. Hispanic immigrants also prefer individualism. Assimilationism, segregationism, and exclusionism are least endorsed by host community members. Immigrants moderately endorse separatism and weakly endorse assimilationism and marginalization. The social psychological profile of each acculturation orientation revealed that integrationism and individualism was associated with harmonious relational outcomes, whereas assimilationism, segregationism, separatism, and exclusionism were associated with problematic and conflictual intergroup relations.