AbstractsAnthropology

Investigators of an immigrant population have traditionally viewed their subject of study from four points of emphasis, around which they have tended to form into exclusivistic schools of thought: disorganization, assimilation, reinterpretation and ethnicity. This study of the Filipino immigrant garment workers in a mid-west Canadian city was done with the four points of emphasis as guidelines. The preoccupation in this study was not to determine whether or not these immigrants were assimilating, reinterpreting, non-assimilating, or being disorganized since all of these happen to any migrant community in varying intensities. The focus, rather, of the present research was to determine the factors involved in the variations. Further, these points of emphasis were seen to be related to the range of adaptive mechanisms open to an immigrant community and in the study an attempt was made to indicate the reasons why one, rather than another, adjustive mechanism was employed. Culture transplantation appears to be the likely option where there is extreme cultural diversity between the immigrants and the host society, while cultural assimilation seems to be limited to the minimum necessity. Reinterpretation and modification of culture items appear to be the likely adjustive options where similarity of culture items are observed between the immigrants and the host population...