Ethnic Communities and the Construction of Identity

Abstract

Immigration, whether voluntary or involuntary, is a momentous and traumatic experience that requires both material and psychological adaptation. Daily life is no longer the same as it was in the home country. At a bare minimum old rules governing behavior have to be modified and adjustments made in order to survive in new surroundings. The effects of these changes on an individual’s way of life and social identity are magnified by official policies that set immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers apart from members of the main stream community by their precarious occupational status and by a social isolation that encourages ethnic segregation and marginalization.