Some Observations on Civic Integration of National Minorities in the United States and Georgia

Abstract

Immigration historians have been greatly interested in the process of US immigration as immigrants cease to be “foreigners” and yet do not become “one hundred percent
Americans”. Ethnicity has become a major notion in the analysis of the process of immigrant adaptation. In the U.S. Geography plays an important tole in the integration
process, how the immigrants establish ethnic ties and what kind of ethnic resources they exercise in different environments.
Gaining differential socio-economic status, Japanese-Peruvians assume ‘Asian’ identity in Los Angeles and ‘Hispanic/Latino’ in New York. Another main factor is linguistic affinity,
which is shaped through social relations. In Los Angeles Japanese-Peruvians speak Japanese, prospering through Japanese-American business companies, while in New
York they speak Spanish.
When considering the integration process of Georgian national minorities in 2005-2013, we speak of insufficient knowledge of Georgian state language among national minorities,
that obstructs their socio-economic development and explains their mal-representation on all level of central or local governance, in the Parliament of Georgia. Although
the Ministry of Education and Science enacted a number of innovative regulations in terms of enforcing the instruction of the state language in non-Georgian language regions
through establishing preschool centers, trainings for national minority teachers, facilitating enrollment of minorities into universities in condition of covering just one
year Georgian Language Training freshman course , no professional, standardized approaches were implemented, as regulations needed some supplementary mechanisms.
Keywords: Adaptation, ethnic, language skills, self-categorization