Integrating into a New Country: How Long Does it Take?
Image credit: Shinobu
People have often asked me how long it takes to get integrated—or assimilated—in a new country.
As of this writing, I’ve lived in Lausanne (in Switzerland) for almost four years. Of course, due to the coronavirus crisis (you can read my diaries of the experience for my perspective on the pandemic), I spent two of those years mainly indoors and away from other people. Given that these two years came relatively close on the heels of my arrival in the country, my integration timeline necessarily needs to shift. While I don’t feel integrated after four years, I don’t know that I could reasonably expect to be, given the circumstances.
In previous, shorter stints living in other countries than my native country of the United States, whether in Italy or in England, I gained considerable understanding of the local customs, culture, and language during my tenures—but I didn’t feel integrated in either place.
Therefore, when asked the question about timelines for integration, I’ve never had a definitive answer based on my own experiences.
Researching Integration and Assimilation Timelines
As I find questions of migration interesting, I decided to do a little research to see if I could get an answer from others. I sent out questionnaires and follow-up e-mail messages to over a dozen people to learn about their experiences and went back through my interviews from the Stakes project to see what people with whom I’d spoken for my other research had said about their own integration.
I focused my research on adult immigrants, because children who immigrate have less tenure in their native countries before moving and they enter school systems, thereby plunging into the language, culture, and history of their adopted countries (unless they attend special schools for expatriate children). Children who immigrate are, for these reasons, more malleable in terms of integration, even if they aren’t completely malleable due to their families and home lives. Their timelines for integration and assimilation will differ.
But before we dig into what I learned: What do I meant by “integrated?”
I'd define "integrated" in this case as feeling in sync with the culture, speaking the language or using the local idioms, having friends born and raised in the area, and feeling “at home” there.
Could we define “assimilated” in the same way? Hard to say. Some would, some wouldn’t.
Reading between the lines of the overarching current discourse indicates that “assimilation” would mean blending almost seamlessly into the local or native culture and customs—something nearly impossible for many, if not most, people who immigrate. (After all, this definition touches on questions of race, language and accent, religion, and more.)
“Integration,” on the other hand, appears to imply in today’s dominant current dialogue that a person has become incorporated into the larger unit, without completely blending into it in a way that would appear indistinguishable to a native or local person.
Rough Integration Timelines
So how long does it take to get integrated in a new place, then?
As with so many things, it depends.
If you move to a place that speaks the same or a similar language as you do, has the same dominant race as your own, and has a similar culture to your native culture, you will integrate more easily and more quickly. Integration could take you only a handful of years.
However, if you enter a country without these advantages and need to work to learn the language and culture and need to integrate across racial lines, you will need considerably longer to feel integrated. This type of integration effort is difficult and, per my research subjects, perhaps impossible. None of the people with whom I’ve spoken considered themselves integrated, including the people who’d spent decades in their current country (and no longer felt at home in their native country, either).
Integration has a less clearly demarcated end point—“aha, I am integrated!’’—the longer you spend somewhere. The more fluent you become in the customs and culture of a place, the more you will see how, even in subtle ways, you differ and may always differ, at least a little.
You may also realize that while willing to integrate, you only want to integrate up to a point.
Few people want to completely relinquish their cultural identities. Even people I know who gave up their citizenship to become citizens of their new countries still define themselves by their primary nationality. My Indian-born contacts with U.S. citizenship still consider themselves Indian. My U.S. contacts in Switzerland who have renounced their U.S. citizenship still define themselves as “American.”
I have yet to hear anyone, even someone who has definitively and permanently immigrated to another country, say that they no longer identify with their original country. The country of origin for most people ties directly into their self-identities. And isn’t that okay? I think so.
How to Accelerate Integration in a New Place
If you have immigrated somewhere and want to integrate with the local community as quickly as reasonably possible, I turned up a few recommendations via my research.
The primary recommendation—heard from everyone who didn’t move to a country where their native language and the local language matched—was to learn the language of the place. Everyone with whom I spoke and corresponded who didn’t feel as integrated as they wished to be—some even after up to ten years in their adopted countries—said that the language barrier was the biggest reason they felt this way.
After all, you cannot connect with locals and the local community in a natural way without speaking the language as fluently as possible. If you want to get involved, participate in society, and make friends, you must be able to communicate.
Alas, language learning doesn’t come easily for most people. (Including me. You can learn about my struggles with learning French here.) It will require time and funds to pay for courses. You’ll need to budget a considerable amount for both. The challenges involved mean that many people give up before they achieve fluency. (Read my article researching why and how to prevent it from happening to you.)
As soon as you can speak the local language at a rudimentary level, identify and actively participate in groups and activities where you can meet and interact with people in the local community.
Several people in my research referenced the lure of groups dedicated to your fellow countrypeople as easy traps that can veer you away from integrating into your new culture. I agree. These groups can help you get settled and feel less lonely while you learn the local language and customs, but you need to avoid spending all your time in them if your goal is to get integrated in your adopted community.
Therefore, volunteer for a local nonprofit, join groups organized by local people that share your hobbies and sports, participate in local arts and cultural activities, get engaged with local politics, and attend events at your local community center. If you have children in school, actively participate in the parent activities.
The more you can do along these lines, the better and more quickly you’ll integrate.
Yes, you will stand out—especially if you come from a different racial and cultural background than the dominant one and if you have only a basic language capability. Yes, this will be hard. Putting yourself forward even in your own language and culture is difficult for most people, and being “other” compounds this feeling. Do not underestimate how much work you will need to do to learn the language and fit in culturally as best you can.
You will often want to give up. But if you want to integrate, you must keep at it.
Erasing Cultural Identity: Possible or Even Desirable?
Interestingly, I had more than one respondent in my research reference the ten-year mark as the point at which they felt something shift.
Perhaps they didn’t suddenly feel integrated after ten years, but they felt a sense of permanence in their new places at that point. Also, more than one person told me that, after a decade, they felt like they could understand and participate in the local community and that the local community accepted them as members—even if they still felt somewhat “other.”
If you’ve moved as an adult to a place far from your country of origin and have lived there for several years, I’d love to hear about your experience!