Deculturalization of America

Culture is the Backbone of a society, when something/someone tries to alter it or go against it everyone will notice. In this issue pointed out by Ruth Macklin, we look at the problems that can arise when an individual’s culture and autonomy clash. Every year there at least 30 million immigrants from all over the world that move to the United states of America, making America one of the most culturally diverse country in the world. Keeping this in mind, we will focus on Ruth Macklin’s issue of Multiculturalism. Multiculturalism is the co-existence of diverse cultures, where culture includes racial, religious, or cultural groups and is manifested in customary behaviors, cultural assumptions and values, patterns of thinking, and communicative styles. Critics argue that we associate culture with a society, community and or family, but rarely with a single individual, thus placing it above the individual person. In this paper we are going to look at four different scenarios on from Ruth Macklin’s article.

Through learning, families values, community relationships, and the willingness to achieve. Culture can be easily seen - the behavior of people – is the smallest part of culture. The greatest part, internal culture is inside people’s heads. It is our way of thinking and perceiving. Most importantly, it includes the values and beliefs unconsciously learned while growing up. The collision of two cultures as people come together causes us to become more aware of the differences and similarities between cultural values. By understanding the internal culture and significant values, we have a system to analyze and interpret behavior. People from around the globe bring their cultures here to American and institute them into society. Although, the United States is a culturally diverse society, there is a dominant culture and others give up their culture (depending upon where they may live) so they can fit into mainstream society. My family as other African American families changed their ways to fit into society hoping to become socially accepted because of not being members of the dominant culture. As with most societal trends, family values in all cultures are in constant motion; the list of American family values is always evolving. African

The chapter continued to discuss how people experience other cultures when they are removed from their area to a different place. This occurs in the form of culture shock people experience new traditions that are unfamiliar to them when the come to a place that is home to another culture. Human development may also include joining the ideas of various cultures and forming it into a new concept. It puts heavy emphasis on learning other cultures in an unbiased form in order to compare and make observations. This chapter also studies of culture have been able to advance over time and how change is an essential aspect of

Upon the European’s discovery and colonization of the Americas an irreversible transformation was triggered. The extreme differences in the cultures of the Europeans and Native Americans would prove to be fatal to the way of life that existed before European colonization.

During the end of the nineteenth century, the United States had formed policies which reduced land allotted to Native Americans. By enforcing these laws as well as Anglo-American ideals, the United States compromised indigenous people’s culture and ability to thrive in its society.

To me culture is best defined as “the symbolic meanings by which the members of a group or society communicate with and understand themselves, each other and the world around them” (Banks & Banks, 2016, p. 27). Therefore, deculturalization is taking away someone’s ability to understand and communicate with others in their culture. Over my many years of schooling, I have learned little about the deculturalization of Native Americans. I knew that Anglo-American belief that they were a superior culture lead to the destruction of Native American culture but I was awakened to just how this happened. Specifically, I found the United States government use of citizenship and education as a form of deculturalization to be the most shocking revelations. Before this class, I did not realize or even think about how vital the role of citizenship and education was to the deculturalization process of the Native Americans.

It is expected that ultimately there will be a loss of ethnic distinctiveness for immigrants in the U.S., meaning the lack of attachment to the country of origin. (Golash-Boza, 2006) It is argued that all ethnic distinctiveness will no longer exist by the seventh or eighth generations. Before exploring the influence of foreign born vs. U.S. born parents on their children’s cultural assimilation; the different theories of assimilation will be explored. The idea of Assimilation came about in the early 20th century. (Golash-Boza, 2006) Assimilation is surrounded by two theories, the first that all immigrants will assimilate sooner or later and that the generational status of the individual is one of the main factors in determining the

As Mahatma Gandhi said, “No culture can live, if it attempts to be exclusive” (Mahatma). Our culture identifies who we are and how we behave in social environments and provides us with a foundation in which to live our lives and raise our families. Each individual culture has certain customs and courtesies that are important. Exposure to the cultures of others can be intimidating and can leave a person feeling confused and unsure about how they fit in (Schaefer 60). Culture shock can leave a person feeling out of place in an unfamiliar culture (Schaefer 60). Our diverse societies demand understanding and acceptance of other cultures. Learning and understanding these cultures before being

For immigrants in America, two radically different choices of culture exist. First, the immigrants can choose to stay loyal to their ancestral roots and deny mainstream culture. Instead of contributing to the melting pot of opinions present they isolate within themselves by refusing to learn both the English language and American culture as a whole. Because they cannot communicate with a majority of the population, they don’t maintain any amount of control over American ideals including both politically and socially. The second opportunity available would be to embrace this new found culture, no matter how foreign it is to them, and develop a sense of unity with America. If immigrants wish to break the currently controlled system of power and privilege in America and truly become a part of American customs, they must learn to assimilate culturally.

Historically, relationships between European colonists and Native American were extremely complex and complicated. Due to the violent European colonization of America, Native Americans became susceptible to oppressions and extinction for over five hundred years (Poupart, 2003). European colonists’ central focus were directed towards acquiring maximum profits by exploiting Native American’s vast resources and utilizing their physical performance toward enslavement. This created devastation among Native American families, movement of various fatal diseases, and destruction of the traditional lifestyle of Native Americans (Starkey, 1998). The elimination of Native American culture came with strong opposition and resistance through civil organizations, religious movements, and conflict revolutions.

Indeed, people consider their traditional beliefs when introduced to Western culture because it allows them to draw valuable lessons from cultural import and enforce their own principles and notions. However, there are instances in which this “cultural imperialism” separates individuals from their traditional beliefs, regardless of their cultural surroundings and efforts to prevent cultural assimilation, because in many situations

Even though there are set values that are universally known to the public, people do not always follow those values within their groups. However, these people have to act in conformity and abide by the values in public. Although everyone assumes that “imagined communities” contain a common culture, in reality, they really do not due to the fact that there are many body of ideas and practices that are not shared. Many languages are spoken and countless number of religions are practiced in various countries, so these make the “common culture” idea a misconception among citizens of different countries. For example, people tend to think that America consists of culture that is common, but they do not know if the beliefs, values, and practices are universally shared by all Americans. Nonetheless, there was a time when a dominant culture in the United States actually existed. It was during when the religion of Christianity was prominent and when many countries in Europe spoke the English language. It should be known that black Americans, Chinese-Americans, and white Americans have a common culture because of everything they do and do not share. From the common culture would arise the social identity, which can cause problems in diversity. Diversity can be an issue because of the ignorance of all the contrasting values. These issues arise because racial and ethnic identities are compared to one another and both can also relate to genders and sexualities. Nevermore, distinct genders and sexualities often live together now with the same knowledge and values and can still grow into opposite racial identities. Ethnic identities are so different since they are created in family and community life and people want the solidarity from being unique to one

     Deculturalization refers to the "stripping away of a people's culture and replacing it with a new culture" (Spring 1). Deculturalization is one of the most inhumane acts one can partake in. A person's culture is his/her main defining feature. Culture is the medium through which people communicate their beliefs, values, and morals. Inserting one's own culture in place of someone's pre-existing culture is the basis of ethnocentrism. People have repeatedly become victims of deculturalization, especially in the United States, and by analyzing this ethnocentrism one learns the importance of sustaining different cultures in society.

The increasing accommodations directed toward immigrant culture worries many Americans. Americans fear the special treatment granted to immigrants will affect the unifying force of the country. Today, the trend is toward multiculturalism, diversity and adapting the newcomer, rather than on the newcomer adapting himself or herself to a diverse society (61).

In this article, it also talks about the families who have decided to try and assimilate into the dominant culture. Those who have more mental and/or physical health issues are the ones who have assimilated by forgetting their heritage and the connections that take place. In order to really understand culture we as workers need to take it upon ourselves to appreciate the connections between “ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, class, race, religion, geography, migration and politics and how they have together influenced families in adapting to American life” (Falicov, 1995). All of these things have an impact in some way on the assimilation of different cultures into the ‘American life.’ This article talks about how assimilating people move closer to these dominant values in two ways: 1) the longer time period they remain residents in the United States and 2) the degree of which the individuals rise in social class. It is thought that there are a few ways individuals can remain more comfortable in their ethnicity for a longer period of time, they typically remain in a neighborhood that is among their ethnicity, interact with members of their specific ‘group,’ and have religious ties to their ethnic