Final answer:
Ethnic minority parents usually emphasize language proficiency, cultural traditions, and understanding and appreciating diversity, but not assimilation without regard for heritage. Assimilation could undermine their cultural identity, which these parents often seek to preserve alongside adaptation to U.S. culture.
Step-by-step explanation:
Ethnic minority parents often strive to help their children adapt to U.S. culture while also retaining their own cultural identity. In doing so, they usually emphasize things like language proficiency, maintaining cultural traditions, and teaching the importance of understanding and appreciating diversity.
However, they typically do not stress assimilation without regard for heritage, which would involve giving up their own cultural traditions and fully conforming to a new environment—an approach that is contrary to the concept of pluralism or the 'salad bowl' model.
Assimilation can be a barrier for immigrants, making it difficult to fully integrate when faced with racial and ethnic discrimination. Language assimilation, for instance, can limit employment and educational opportunities and, consequently, affect socioeconomic status. Therefore, the emphasis of immigrant parents on maintaining the cultural identities of their children serves as a means of cultural preservation and resilience in the face of assimilation pressures.
In the U.S., acculturation involves adapting to the beliefs and practices of the larger host population, while still retaining aspects of one's original culture. Assimilation, on the other hand, implies a minority's full adoption of the dominant culture's traits, often at the expense of their own cultural identity.
Therefore, option 3, 'Assimilation without regard for heritage', is the one that ethnic minority parents would not emphasize, as it contradicts the preservation of their cultural identity.