Now, the immigrant issues are becoming hotter and hotter. “According to the 2016 Current Population Survey (CPS), immigrants and their U.S.-born children now number approximately 84.3 million people, or 27 percent of the overall U.S. population”. (Zong 22) This trend is actually not only appearing in the U.S., but also most Western countries. Immigration issues are drawing more and more international society’s attention since there is a higher and higher population of immigrants. For most Western countries, as a nation’s perspective, the Western countries have been modifying the immigration polices to adopt this multicultural trend. It is fair to say that integration is very important in order for a nation to deal with immigrant issues. By given civic integration this fact, “for over decade now is “civic integration policies that seek to bind newcomers to majority institutions and culture by requiring them to learn the host-society language and acknowledge basic host-society norms and values” (Joppke 124). Cultural assimilation is highly necessary and important for immigrants. It matters to every individual because, when one cultural group adopts the beliefs and behaviors of another group, the new groups have to learn to behave to fit in to cultural norms to avoid having troubles in terms of living life. In this way cultural assimilation is very important for immigrant people. In particular, young immigrants have the most difficult experiences in terms of processing cultural assimilations. Basically, young immigrants’ cultural assimilation is affected by their new living country’s cultures and their household’s cultures. There are some factors are shaping young immigrants’ unique life, such as, social attitudes, education backgrounds, religions, ethics, and social behaviors. for most young immigrant people, finding their cultural identity can be an arduous task since they are living in the two disparate culture.  It is highly important for society and immigrant family to understand young immigrants’ difficulties of assimilating cultures and how these factors affect their cultural assimilation in order to provide them a harmonious growth environment. 

When the young immigrants are living under a different cultural background, they have more difficulty identifying themselves. Their set of morals and values may contradict with the morals and values of the new culture they are living in. They might feel like they do not fit in. This happens to most immigrant youth when there are conflicts between their families’ beliefs or behaviors and another people’s in their living country. The adolescents become confused when their family’s values do not agree with the values of their new culture. Who should immigrant youths believe? I believe a lot of the young immigrants are growing up with this question and struggles. The more cultural differences there are between their family and living country the more serious cultural conflicts will happen for immigrant children. Different religions, languages, ethics, life styles, social behavior are factors that accumulate as conflicts, which will eventually affect young immigrant people’s cultural assimilation. 

Firstly, the religious difference is a serious issue for people who are religious. As we all know, different religions have their unique beliefs and behaviors. This is where the conflicts come from in in terms of cultural assimilation. Ronia Arab, an Iraqi immigrant teenager who is growing up in Canada, tells a CBC news reporter, “My parents don’t like the way I dress. They want me to be like them, but I don’t know anything about their culture” (CBC news 4). She’s been fighting with her parents over the "Canadian" way she dresses and carries herself. In this case, from Ronia’s Iraqi parent’s perspective, they think highly of the Muslim culture and obey it fully. For the Muslim parents, their traditional custom and lifestyle are very important. On one hand, it is understandable how parents would be disappointed when their children just ignore or even deny their religion. The parents expect their children to maintain the family’s heritage. On the other hand, from the child’s perspective, it also makes sense that they don’t want to follow their parent’s traditional culture, because the environment that they grow up in doesn’t have common values with their parents’ religion. When some religious clothing requirements make children look different from other children, young people will feel they are less acceptable in the society, it could bring negative effects when they want to adapt to the living country’s society as well as they can.  It is highly possible that they don’t want to accept their family’s culture in terms of religion. Yet there is no denying that the family has a significant effect on a child’s growth. As a result, in this circumstance, the children are pressured toward cultural assimilation. 

 Furthermore, the young immigrant people’s cultural assimilation processing has tightly coupled with their usage of language. In “Adaptation of Immigrant Children to the United States,” McCarthy reveals, “Most educators and social scientists agree that it is crucial for immigrant children to master the English language” (McCarthy 9). Daily communication between people mostly depends on talking. Also, the language is also an important part of a culture. Most immigrants will face the situation of learning a new language. Christian Joppke mentions in “Rethink National Identity in the Age of Migration”, “In the U.S., functional necessity and resource scarcity tilt toward an assimilationist response with respect to language” (128). It implies that language is very important for adapting to a county’s mainstream society. But, for immigrant young people, they have to accept their parent’s language while also learning a new language. Mastery of English is more difficult for immigrant teenagers compared with children who grow up under the single language environment. Thus, learning a language is a challenge for young immigrant people. In the “Mother Tongue,” Amy Tan was born in a Chinese immigrant family in America. She shares the experiences in terms of struggling with her mother’s English and standard English. Most immigrant young people have faced the differences and division in language.  Like Tan writes in the article, “I think my mother’s English almost had an effect on limiting my possibilities in life as well” (Tan 345). Here, Tan thinks non-standard English could bring negative affects to her life in some way. The nuances and difficulties of cultural assimilation are depicted by linguistic barriers that the immigrant children have to adapt to in American society since they will live there for a lifetime. As the result, it is necessary for them to assimilate into American culture. When people want to assimilate into a new society, being good at the society’s language is an imperative thing because language is necessary for daily life and academic achievement.

McCarthy states in his research, “Mastery of English can propel children into the educational mainstream, allowing them to excel in school and improve their chances of successful and meaningful post-graduation employment” (McCarthy 9). Most of the immigrant children become sensitive about their usage of language while adapting to the American culture, which is different from the culture of their family. The young people may not keep family’s culture since the immigrant family’s non-standard usage of English and the accent will not work well for the living country’s mainstream society. But, children will be affected by family’s language environment more or less since the environment will have significant influence on children’s growth. It is fair to say that linguistic barriers affect young people as they assimilate. 

As we all know, living in two disparate cultures makes immigrants unique. The differences in the immigrant family’s religion, and language affect young immigrant people’s cultural assimilation. Besides these factors, there are also many differences in the two different cultures’ life style, ethics, etc. Certainly, the teenager could become confused between their family’s minority culture and the living country’s mainstream culture. The conflicts can bring immigrant youth the concern of choosing which culture they prefer to or should adapt to; meanwhile their unique ethnic identity is building gradually. Sometimes, the living culture doesn’t work for parents, sometimes, the heritage of the family’s culture does not work well for the large society. “Immigrant children are often forced to make a painful, emotional choice between their parents’ culture and the mainstream norms they are exposed to in school” (McCarthy 9). In that case, the processing of cultural assimilation can be painful. Farag is a second generation immigrant Canada, where she has been stuck between a rock and a hard place for a long time. Facing her parents’ strong wish to maintain family’s heritage, she said, “I'm not going to turn my back and say 'OK, I’m an Egyptian in Egypt, but here I’m going to become Canadian, I can't do that, my parents can’t do that" (Riet CBCnewsi ). Some young people feel shame in carrying on their family’s culture, which has different values and norms from mainstream society, even as they feel guilty rejecting their parents’ cultures. Plainly, the young people’s culture assimilation will be affected by their family’s culture. 

In spite of some factors that have a significant influence on young people’s cultural assimilation from their family side, the social environment of their living country also affects young people’s thoughts and behavior as they assimilate cultures.  “The Familial and other forms of interpersonal values and relations are social factors that can affect the acculturation process. As Pasick et al. suggests, the extent to which behaviors occur is not solely related to familial influences, but also to the influences of new groups of persons” (Lopez-Class 1557) 

Undoubtedly, young immigrants and first generation citizens will try to adapt to  mainstream society as much as they can since they will spend the rest of their lives in the country. Consequently, it is significantly important for young immigrants to assimilate to living in a new culture. However, the acculturation process of immigrants doesn’t just depend on their subjective consciousness; there are some social factors, such as, social attitudes, peer impacts, educations, and politics. 

Tan, a second generation Chinese -American, laments in her story over “the fact that people in department stores, at banks, and at restaurants did not take her seriously, did not give her good service, pretended not to understand her, even acted as if they did not hear her” (344).  It was an impactful experience when Tan was child. In Tan’s case, her experience with American people made her question where she belonged by considering the others’ attitudes. This situation is the reality for many immigrants. From a sociologic approach, “people turn to the avoidance of social interaction with immigrants in society. Based on statistics, approximately 21% of the general public wish to avoid such social interaction” (Coenders 5). Many Americans “favor ethnic distance,” and, as a result, self-doubt, worry, and confusion may take over immigrants’ minds while attempting to adapt to a new society when this kind of universal human social behavior takes place. Young immigrants’ struggles are especially difficult to overcome because they don’t have a default setting with which to understand both of their families’ cultures. In this circumstance, it is reasonable that immigrant children will feel uncomfortable, and doubt themselves while determining their own cultural preferences, which results in their cultural assimilation. In addition, the young immigrants’ experiences with educations and peers in school are very important. for the young immigrants, most peers around them having different values, and ethics. However, these invisible characters are not usually considered by peers due to their naïve nature. The immigrant children are prejudiced by their peers in the school oftentimes because of their different races, facial features, behaviors, and pronunciation of their names. The immigrant children may shift their values, or ethics by adapting to mainstream society, however they can not change anything with their race. “Almost every student in her sample reported having been called names, pushed or spat upon, or deliberately tricked, teased or laughed at because of their race or ethnicity” (McCarthy 15). When the immigrant children are doubted by their peers, they would have more concerns with identity choices. Tamer points in “The Education of Immigrant Children,” “Classrooms in the U.S. tend to be incredibly focused on the United States. Simultaneously, immigrant youth enter into a highly racialized society in the United States” (37).  This situation can bring more negative effect to children’s cultural assimilation. Providing a good environment of their school life a is necessary for immigrant children’s acculturation.  Letting students understand multicultural classroom, and accept the differences are good both majority students and students with immigrant cultural backgrounds. Once student understand the multicultural facts, have a common sense with immigrants in school, the social environment will change to be better for immigrant consequently. 
