QUOTE : Assimilation is the process of interpenetration and fusion of the habits, customs, traditions and historical backgrounds of different ethnic groups in such a way that their major cultural distinctions become synthesized into one culture, and the groups become more or less one people mutually sharing the privileges and responsibilities of a common society. This process has been going on throughout the entire span of human history. Not once, to my knowledge, has it happened without intermarriage ultimately taking place. In fact, intermarriage is perhaps the crucial test in determining when a people have completely won their way into the mainstream of any given society.