Meaning of “Assimilation”

In "Assimilation," the Indian Man with whom protagonist Mary Lynn has sex is less of a character and more of a symbol - specifically, of the side of her identity that Mary Lynn is both desperate to conceal and desperate to understand. The sense from the narrative is that when she has sex with him, she is trying to connect with a part of herself that she is simultaneously repulsed by and inescapably connected to.