‘Assimilation’ No Longer Defines the Immigrant Experience.

“Don’t hold your breath waiting for immigrants to assimilate,” says Dr. Ines Poza, founder of Poza Consulting Services, when talking with clients interested in targeting Latinos. “It would be like waiting for the Pony Express — it’s gone with the last century.”

According to Poza, it’s no longer about a new culture needing to assimilate to an existing culture. It’s about recognizing change in the whole, what Poza refers to as the emergence of The New Mainstream. Failure to keep current with these new realities directly impacts businesses’ ability to compete, stay profitable and, ultimately, remain a going concern.

Poza contends that while assimilation may have explained how immigrants in the first half of the last century became part of the larger social fabric it does not explain what’s happening today.

During that time there were enormous social and economic pressures to adapt to and adopt a “mainstream” identity. Archival photographs show businesses that posted signs like “Irish or Italians need not apply.” In the early 1960s, when corporal punishment was still allowed in schools, Hispanic children were routinely spanked for speaking Spanish on campus. In this post-Civil Rights era, however, discrimination is no longer in a legally enforced form or socially accepted to the degree that it was to compel people to shed or hide their differences.

“But we’re still invested in this outdated theory of `assimilation’ — this idea that immigrants change in order to merge with the `mainstream,'” Poza says.

As for the changes in diet, shopping habits and personal style that Latinos experience after living in the United States for a period of time, Poza contends this is not a result of assimilation. “It’s the result of being in a richer consumer environment,” she says.

“The average Latino immigrant comes as an economic refugee,” Poza explains. “What I hear time and again from Spanish-language-dominant consumers is in the United States they not only finally earn enough to have disposable income, they also find far wider choices in styles and merchandise and at prices within reach.

“Mistaking a Latino consumer’s change in behavior as being `assimilation’ or, worse yet, `aspirational,’ in a move to become more American would be like saying our love of sushi or yoga in the United States means Americans are assimilating to Asian and Indian cultures,” Poza states. Although there has been a radical shift in the U.S. palate for food and fitness during the last 50 years, no one would consider classifying these changes as assimilation.

Poza credits the post-Civil Rights era and a social climate that celebrates rebels, youth culture, new experiences and change as impetus for a richer, more diverse consumer playground. “We now are legally and socially allowed and encouraged to sample from other cultures,” Poza says.

Business, marketing and advertising models of consumers have not kept pace though. “We still cling to this archaic model of `general market’ and niche markets when this does not capture what’s happening in real time,” Poza believes. “The New Mainstream is about acknowledging that different cultures form the whole, and they are meeting and impacting and enriching each other.”

Poza focuses on understanding The New Mainstream and bringing it to life for clients. To do this, her team goes to places where people work and play, asking questions on issues of the day, and how people view society and their fit into that society.

According to Poza, this is where the real insights come from and is the core of identifying actual market segments and developing relevant strategy that will succeed. Poza adds, “Understanding the concept of The New Mainstream and bringing that front and center in developing communications in any language is a must. Because sooner than we realize, that is what will determine market leaders.”

For more information at http://www.pozaconsulting.com/