ABSTRACT
In the previous chapter I argued that the definition of the ‘problem’ of immigration at the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s involved a retrospective reconstruction of assimilation. The dichotomies between temporary and permanent, single male and family and economic and social forms of immigration formed the new vocabulary through which this reconstruction took place. As we have seen, its effect was to suggest a major distinction in terms of assimilability between European and non-European immigrants based on cultural differences. This redefinition of past and present immigration was a major factor in the contemporary racialisation of immigration and wider social, economic and political questions. This chapter will develop this argument to consider other discursive aspects of this process, the wider historical determinations of this new paradigm and the problems it has posed for anti-racist movements.
