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Other scholars, however, disagree with both the likelihood and benefits of straight cultural and structural assimilation for ethnic minorities. Instead, immigrants can follow different trajectories based on their “mode of incorporation” into the country (Portes and Rumbaut 2006). According to this approach, immigrant groups encounter a segmented assimilation, that is, they can assimilate into different segments of society beyond simply the white middle class assumed within assimilation theory (Portes and Zhou 1993). For instance, immigrants may live in inner cities with poorer African Americans or Latinxs as neighbors than middle-class whites. According to these theorists, it may be to an immigrant group’s advantage not to assimilate if the local group they would assimilate into does not often advance within school or in the labor market. Instead, groups might benefit from maintaining their ethnicity. Relying on group members’ assistance, values, and employment opportunities can facilitate children’s success within institutions like education, the labor market, and more (Gibson 1988; Waters 1999; Zhou and Bankston 1998). Maintaining transnational ties to one’s homeland can also help groups adjust to their local surroundings (Smith 2006). Otherwise, groups could be at risk of a “downward” trajectory (Gans 1992).

Despite its differences from standard assimilation theory, this emphasis on groups’ possible diverse outcomes based on their physical location and group assets fits assimilation theory in that it expects an ethnic groups’ gradual “incorporation” into the host society. As Portes and his co-authors write about the second generation, “the central question is not whether the second generation will assimilate to American society, but to what segment of that society it will assimilate” (Portes, Fernandez-Kelly, and Haller 2005: 1000). There are few, if any, entrenched barriers, such as racism, that cannot be overcome with the right resources (e.g. community oversight, educational support) within this perspective.

In addition to downplaying race as a pervasive constraint on minorities, these various assimilation paradigms stress the significance of culture in determining economic and social outcomes. Over time, immigrants who culturally assimilate akin to previous European immigrants are expected to become economically stable. They may hold onto certain cultural elements, such as traditional foods on special occasions, but these become mostly “symbolic” and ceremonial, rather than influential on people’s lives (Alba 1990; Waters 1990).

According to these first two theoretical perspectives, groups gradually become more like their host society along key dimensions, including educational attainment, residential location, language preference, self-identity, marital partner, and so on. If poor immigrants have access to supportive co-ethnics (i.e. people who share their ethnic background) and do not encounter too many obstacles (e.g. discrimination), they too can achieve mobility. The major difference between the theories is that segmented assimilation stresses that the road to economic stability often drives through strong ties to one’s ethnic group, whereas standard assimilation stresses the benefits of letting go of these ties. And as articulated within segmented assimilation theory, without sufficient support from co-ethnics, the second generation may assimilate in a downward fashion, marked by limited mobility (Portes and Rumbaut 2001).