America’s Assimilation System Is Broken

In the past, new citizens could not return to their homeland easily and had very little contact with their family. Now everyone is connected and there is not much necessity to assimilate.    - - Donna Poisl

By John Fonte

On Monday, the Hudson Institute published a paper entitled “America’s Patriotic Assimilation System Is Broken,” which I co-authored with social scientist Althea Nagai.

Nagai’s quantitative analysis of Harris Interactive survey data revealed that the evidence of patriotic assimilation of immigrant citizens to American identity is weak and ambiguous compared with that of native-born citizens.

Over 20 survey questions on issues of patriotic attachment and civic knowledge, there was a large gap between native-born and naturalized citizens. Some findings of the Harris survey (originally commissioned by the Bradley Foundation Project on American National Identity) are listed below:
Click on the HEADLINE above to read the questions and answers in the survey! This is only a small part of it.