In the former chapters an attempt has been made to set out some of the
difficulties encountered by foreign-born families who attempt to
establish themselves in the United States. The discussion has dealt
with the problem as though the community were one factor and the
immigrant family another factor, and as though the solution to be
arrived at could be discovered by bringing them into new relations to
each other. This treatment is justified, in view of the fact that even
a slight analysis makes it clear that certain modifications in
governmental and social machinery are highly desirable. When the
limitations imposed by the war on freedom of migration have been
removed, the possibility of dealing more wisely and more humanely with
incoming family groups must be considered.
In a very real sense, during any period when the volume of immigration
is considerable, the community _is_ one factor and the immigrant _is_
another factor, and a partial solution is to be found in a new
treatment of the relationships between these two. But in another sense
the discussion is inadequate and perhaps misleading. The relationship
between the community and the immigrant is not mechanical, but
organic. So soon as he is admitted, he is in fact a part of the
community, and what will be done, what can be done, depends in part at
least upon the extent to which that relationship is developed. The
currents of the community life must flow through and both enrich and
be enriched by the life of the newcomer. If these currents are
obstructed, he neither shares nor contributes as he might.
These channels of intercourse, however, have often been so obstructed
that contacts have been denied. That segregation and separation have
characterized the life of many of the groups for considerable periods
of time has become a commonplace, and it has been generally known that
the life of these different foreign-born groups was separate from the
general life of the community, and the life of one group separate from
the life of other groups. But the fact that within these separate
groups was developed often a fairly rich and highly organized life has
not been so widely recognized.