How Social Categorization May Inform the Study of Hispanic Immigration

Abstract

The basic tenet of this article is that social categorization theories are usefulfor a better understanding of the immigration experience. The article summarizes findings in the categorization literature as they may serve to clarify many aspects of the immigration phenomena. How social categorization theories may contribute to the understanding of immigration, particularly Hispanic immigration, is also examined. It is argued that immigration necessarily involves changes in the way immigrants make sense of the world and that immigration poses new challenges to the host group. Entering a new society implies a dual process in which immigrants are categorized by others and recategorize themselves based on new comparison groups. Some options to negotiate self-imposed and socially imposed categories are: assimilation, integration, alternation, acculturation, biculturalism, and separation. Finally, ethnocentrism and emotional problems that may resultfrom the dynamic involved in categorization are examined.