In examining the complexity of assimilation and Americanization, one finds an enormous range of diversity among the immigrant populations of the United States. Immigrants reflect different kinds of attitudes, beliefs, opinions, and identities. Furthermore, while the nation's immigrant community is increasing, their socioeconomic profiles point to both promising and troubling conditions.

Few immigrants come from well-to-do families in which both parents have been to high school or college. A large proportion come from working-class or poor families in which neither parent has finished high school. As of 2006, 1 of every 5 students in public schools is either an immigrant or the child of an immigrant. Immigrant children are the fastest-growing sector of the U.S. child population.

Research in the field suggests that while many immigrants today are achieving high levels of education and social mobility, there are many others who are poorly educated, semiskilled, or unskilled. Although European immigrants in the past were largely unskilled, they could rely on abundant factory jobs that allowed them to establish a foothold in the economy. Current economic changes as a result of globalization, however, have relegated the least fortunate immigrants to persistent poverty and racial segregation.

A new surge of resegregation in many cities is contributing to a growing gap in educational quality between the schools attended by White students and those serving a large proportion of ethnically diverse students. Under such conditions, an inferior education compounds the persistent gap in educational attainment levels between immigrant (particularly Latino) and other students. This provides even more evidence that current conceptions of Americanization are not working in the ways they are purported to function by their advocates.

The research on immigrants also documents that social success is not necessarily found through education, the professions, or even extraordinary entrepreneurship, but rather through stable families acting collectively to achieve economic goals. The classic assimilation process that previous European immigrants underwent no longer applies to the new immigrant wave, as the U.S. economy has shifted from an industrial model of production to an informational model of mining conceptual space and information.

Another salient condition that contributes to being incorporated or rejected into the fabric of American society is cultural capital. Cultural capital has to do with the general cultural background, knowledge, disposition, and skills that are passed down from one generation to the next. It includes ways of talking; modes of style, acting, and socializing; understanding expected behaviors; forms of knowledge; values; and language practices.

The more cultural capital one acquires, the easier it is to blend into American society. Enrique Trueba argues that whereas Latino immigrants have often been seen as lacking the necessary cultural capital to succeed in the mainstream population, they, in fact, possess more cultural capital through their ability to master different languages and to cross racial and ethnic boundaries and through their general resiliency to endure and negotiate social, political, and economic hardships.