Afghans in America: A Potentially Severe Culture Clash
By Jason Richwine on August 27, 2021
As the Biden administration contemplates bringing tens of thousands (or maybe even hundreds of thousands) of Afghan migrants into the U.S., the president should remember that our capacity to assimilate newcomers is limited. Look no further than Somalis in Minneapolis or Hmong in Wausau for examples of immigrant groups who have not blended into the social fabric, even with decades of time to do so.
Refugees from developing countries are especially likely to present assimilation challenges. Unlike immigrants who arrive through selective channels, such as skill-based visas, refugees can have personal values and outlooks more typical of their compatriots back home. This would be especially true of refugees from Afghanistan if, as expected, the Biden administration resettles not only battlefield interpreters, but also Afghans with weaker claims of American loyalties, such as local drivers hired by media companies. (Some Afghan migrants are arriving with non-refugee visas, but for simplicity I describe them here collectively as refugees.)
To the extent that Afghan refugees hold views similar to Afghans in general, we can get a sense of their values from the World Values Survey (WVS). The WVS did not conduct interviews in Afghanistan. However, it did interview surrounding countries with ethnic groups that overlap with those in Afghanistan. By taking the responses of Pashtuns in Pakistan, Tajiks in Tajikistan, and Uzbeks in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, and then weighting them to reflect the ethnic distribution in Afghanistan, we can obtain a reasonable approximation of what the average Afghan believes. We can also compare those beliefs to American values as measured by the WVS.
https://cis.org/Richwine/Afghans-America-Potentially-Severe-Culture-Clash
