ABSTRACT
A national narrative that valorizes the quest for societal assimilation and highlights the virtues of Americanism exists in US social sciences and, more broadly, in US society. This chapter discusses the rise and subsequent centrality of assimilation theory in the social sciences, particularly in the writings of Robert Park, Gunnar Myrdal, Milton Gordon, Nathan Glazer and Daniel Moynihan. Richard Alba and Victor Nee are two contemporary social scientists who attempt to revitalize assimilation theory. A primary aim of Alba and Nee is to reformulate assimilation theory as a dominant social science paradigm. Social scientists who are largely uncritical of the current racial-ethnic status quo will likely continue to laud and promote conventional assimilation theory. Possibly the greatest problem associated with past and present assimilation theory is the failure to acknowledge that in the United States and other societies, the everyday processes of societal assimilation more or less require an unhealthy conformity to a white racial framing of society.
