Cultural Effects of Migration

Modern humans evolved in northeastern Africa and went from there. Generation after generation, their descendants walked, and sailed, and eventually flew, to every corner of the Earth. Whether by choice or not, many of our ancestors migrated, and every time they did, they carried their culture with them. Wherever they went, the cultural effects of migration impacted them as well as the cultural landscapes they ended up in.

Migration Influences on Cultural Change

Migration, whether forced or voluntary, changes culture.

Migration changes the culture of migrants and, through cultural diffusion, it changes cultures in the places that migrants end up.

Some of these changes are objectively bad: migrants can bring diseases that wipe out whole populations, as happened many times in the Americas after 1492.

They can also be objectively good: migrants can bring life-saving medicines.

Fig. 1 - Insulin, an essential medicine used to treat diabetes, is welcomed by all cultures and as such is a universal good

Much of the time, the influences are somewhere in between, both good and bad for cultures, depending on whom you are talking to.

Cultural Benefits of Migration

Migration often causes conflict when cultures clash. But there are numerous cultural benefits of migration, both to migrants and to people in areas where migrants settle. However, these might not be seen as benefits at the time they are happening.

Benefits of the Conquest of Mexico?

Let's look at what is often seen as one of the most culturally damaging migrations in history: the arrival of Europeans in the Americas. Specifically, let's look at Hernan Cortes's conquest of the Aztec Empire in 1521.

The world of Indigenous Mexico was upended by the arrival of Europeans bringing new tools, crops, laws, diseases, modes of transportation (horses), and of course, a new religion.

Human sacrifices in the thousands, demanded by Aztec rulers and supervised by the priests of Indigenous religions, were regular sights in the capital of Tenochtitlan when the Spanish arrived. This was a major factor in convincing Indigenous people to follow Christianity. The conquerors gave them no choice, but what resulted was a melding (syncretism) of aspects of Indigenous religions with Roman Catholicism.

Fig. 2 - A tecpatl or obsidian defleshing knife decorated with an eye and teeth. Aztec priests used tecpatls to remove the skin of living sacrificial victims

In hindsight, it is possible, as many do, to lament both the excesses of Christianity's conversion by the sword and the large-scale pre-Christian sacrifices while simultaneously celebrating the syncretic Christianity that came to form part of the essential cultural identity of Mexico.

Beneficial Foods

Now let's consider a cultural benefit the encounter of Old and New Worlds achieved that few dispute: the Columbian Exchange of food!

From the Old World, valuable fruits like mango, citrus, and plantains (bananas) were adopted rapidly by Indigenous peoples in the Americas. Across the Old World, marvelous New World foods like chilli peppers, tomatoes, and, of course, corn (maize) helped transform entire societies.

But even at the time, societies questioned new foods because they were new and different. Potatoes, originally from Peru, didn't come into vogue in Europe for centuries after 1492, for example.

Overall, though, whether seen so at the time of cultural encounter or not, it is fair to say that there are myriad cultural benefits of migration.

Migration vs Cultural Identity

Migration is a double-edged sword for migrants. Whether or not they choose to migrate, they are unlikely to wish to lose their culture. Yet, when they arrive in their new place, that is exactly what is prone to happen.

Assimilation vs Preservation

Preservation of cultural identity starts in the home. Migrants, whether allowed to or not, hold onto their native languages and beliefs and pass them on to their children.

If permitted, they establish cultural spaces of their own, such as places of worship, schools, and shops. These then become ethnic neighbourhoods, enclaves of migrant culture in a sea of other cultures. These neighbourhoods can endure long beyond the original establishment of a migrant community, becoming both part of the cultural diversity of a country and welcoming spaces for new migrants from the cultural homeland.

Melting Pots

The response of governments across the world to migrants is quite diverse, ranging from those that refuse to accept migrants altogether and even limit non-migrant activity in their territory, to countries that basically accept migrants with open arms, allowing them to do what they please as long as their cultural practices don't break the laws of the country they have emigrated to.

Nevertheless, the state's approach to immigration may be a far cry from how local cultures react, even if these are themselves migrant cultures. The experience of the US "melting pot" is an illustrative case here.

Major ports of entry for migrants, such as New York City, have never been free of discrimination by another group against another, and simultaneously, the establishment of ethnic enclaves where cultures can be preserved long-term (i.e., in Chinatown).

New York even harbours ethnic groups from both sides of bitter conflicts in their homelands. The maintenance of prejudiced cultural attitudes may accompany the entire process of retaining cultural identity.

When migrants to the US leave ethnic enclaves and enter broadly "American" spaces, they may attempt to leave behind memories of their homelands and focus on "becoming American." Historically, they found that the process of assimilation helped them get jobs, education, homes, and so forth.

Moving out of ethnic enclaves into areas where your culture is unknown or poorly understood can be downright dangerous. Other established cultures may see such new people as a threat. They eat "strange" food, talk in languages local people don't understand, and may even be seen as "the enemy" because they dress and look like whomever the US is at war with. This entire phenomenon is known as xenophobia.

Fig. 3 - Memorial in California to the Japanese Americans rounded up in 1942 and put in internment camps; anti-Japanese xenophobia extended to the highest levels of the US government during World War II

A thread that often runs through discrimination against migrants is the idea that people of other cultures threaten one's own cultural identity. In the case of the Spanish in Mexico, this was definitely the case; migrants who come as conquerors by definition change the cultures of the lands they happen, often violently. But over time, since the beginning of human culture hundreds of thousands of years ago, migrants have ALWAYS brought cultural change that has challenged and, of course, changed cultural identities...their own and everyone else's.

Migration vs Identity Crisis

Migrants may end up losing their original cultural identity without becoming fully accepted into a new, dominant culture. They may feel like they are in limbo, no longer belonging fully to the culture of the homeland or to that of the mother country, and indeed they may be looked down upon or not accepted by either side. Anyone of European or African descent in the New World, or at least their ancestors, would be familiar with this phenomenon.

Few shed tears for the identity crisis of the criollos, because they ended up at the top of the cultural hierarchy in Mexico. The plight of non-white people is another story. Enslaved Africans were taken to the Americas in chains but almost never, and even to this day, have their descendants been allowed to become fully integrated into the dominant cultures of the countries their ancestors were forced into. At the same time, Indigenous people were not, either. Even though they largely assimilated into dominant white or mestizo cultures in places like Mexico and the US, they never became fully accepted as part of the dominant culture.

Migration vs Cultural Diversity

Migrants make the places they migrate to more culturally diverse. This stands to reason: they bring new languages, new foods, new religions, new styles of music, and so forth. Places that accept cultural diversity as a benefit don't see this as a problem but rather a natural process.

Places where one or more established cultures see the new as something threatening? Well, that can be a whole different story. Xenophobia is often related to political and economic issues. Migrants are blamed for job loss, depressed standards of living, shifting the voter base, hostility toward democratic processes, and many other societal ills.

Anti-Migrant Separatism

"Cultural diversity" can thus come to be seen as a bad thing. People and political parties based on the maintenance and protection of cultural identity (particularly common in Europe) believe that, in the past, unity was created because migrants discarded their own cultures and melded into the dominant culture. Now, they assert, migrants with "non-European values" are not assimilating. They are remaining Muslim and not becoming Christian. They continue to speak their own languages instead of adopting the language of the new country. And so forth.

The mindset of cultural separatism is based on the idea that cultural identities should be kept apart and is often tied to ideas of cultural and racial superiority of one group over another. Any "mixing" diminishes both cultures, proponents say, and a "melting pot" would mean the loss of what constitutes true _______ culture. Fill in the blanks: American, French, British, Spanish, Italian, German, etc., etc. This sometimes spills over into broader ideas about race and skin colour and which migrants are desirable versus which aren't.

It is always worthwhile remembering that the favouring of separatism over diversity or even assimilation is not unique to Europe or the US. It exists all over the world in different guises.