The Human Face of Globalization

Globalization has created an international arena in which economic advantages and emergent populations coexist. These new populations possess novel and often extraordinary human issues, interface and interpenetrate a new global context in which the same conditions for economic advantage for some result in disparities for the many. These new populations have a variety of names or descriptive labels, including asylum seekers, expatriates, guest workers, illegals, refugees, and settlers. In the United States, first- and second-generation immigrants and refugees now comprise more than 25% of our population (Potocky-Tripodi, 2002). Racial/ethnic minority populations have already reached “critical mass” at approximately 31% of population. Together these populations will be responsible for 65% of population growth within four to five decades. The birth rates of these populations in the United States and similarly in other developed countries greatly exceed those of the mainstream, ethically more homogeneous populations.

While these existing, new, and emergent populations are all multicultural, this chapter employs five distinctive descriptive labels to highlight often neglected differences between groups: Resident Minority, Impoverished Underclass, Migrant Labor, Refugees, Transnational Elite. These multicultural populations are impacted by varying societal climates of “welcome” in the United States and other affluent host countries. “Welcome” structures the process and outcomes of acculturation. The climate of “welcome” is codetermined through the goodness of fit of a new population’s expectations with a host majority population’s ideologies. Although this goodness of fit has been described and measured, national policies to date have not recognized this research.