Defining A Multicultural Society : Melting Pot, And Gorgeous Mosaic

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.

How does one create a cohesive multicultural society? Evidently, there are two ways to achieve such a goal: remove diversity completely, or implement policies which value diversity over unity. The removal of diversity creates a homogenous state which will have unprecedented levels of trust, but in reality this degree of uniformity is not possible. Therefore, the only option remaining is to invoke multiculturalism efficiently and effectively. Commencing by allowing minorities to have a voice in public institutions, build an open ended democracy (Tully, 2007). From there, identify that their needs and identities are unique, and respect that. Do not try to conform others to fit a certain ideal, as an accepting political and private sphere is key. Set aside majority beliefs of superiority, as well as actively defending that culture (Stehle, 2012), if multiculturalism is executed correctly, every ethnicity belonging to the nation will be valued and protected. It is pivotal to use the contact hypothesis and promote social interaction among groups (Harell and Stolle, 2010), once people find that they are more alike than different, barriers to cohesion will begin to breakdown. Much of this is easier said than done, but in most most developed liberal democracies where policies reign supreme, it is possible to execute. When cultures are allowed to come together, in conditions that are not marred by economic disparity or other socially divisive constraints, a generalized trust will

The article ‘’What Every American Should Know’’ by Eric Liu acknowledges the struggles, the rapidly changing, and all of the multicultural issues that continually expands through every day of the culture wars. So within this article Liu is confronting a very substantial topic, which he asserts the problem of cultural diversity or the culture wars inside of the United States. In the article Liu provides the reader with many different examples all the way from cultural literacy, multiculturalism, and many examples from history over the years. Liu also expresses these examples in a way that the reader can absorb the details in a different style were the reader has to look at each example in a different aspect to fully understand what he is trying to stay. Liu evaluates E.D Hirsch and talks about the list. The list that every American should know, containing ten words that every citizen in America should know. Liu discourages people use Hirsch’s list because of the time differences between the past and the future, and how the culture war has progressed through time. Liu has evolved Hirsch’s idea and created something more modern that people can create their own list to show the people of America different opinions to have and no one is wrong or right that is what makes this list so influential. (Liu)

In American society, there are multiple cultures and races exist. Since immigrants bring the various cultures to America, Americans face a highly controversial problem. Some of the Americans believe all of the ethnic groups assimilate into a common culture can help Americans distinctly identify themselves. Others argue that ethnic groups should not abandon their cultural heritages background. As a result, merging different cultures into one new culture will cause America lose its cultural diversity which is one significant charm of this country. On the contrary, if every ethnic group only focuses on building their own community and resists communicate with others, it will aggravate the separation of a nation. Although people often argue about these two ways which one is more appropriate to Americans, I think Richard Rodriguez's idea is more realistic in nowadays American society. Rodriguez resists the idea of the melting pot, and believes that assimilation is inevitable and reciprocal. In the essay Does America Still Exist?, Rodriguez explains his thought to us through his experiences.

So many times the phrase "melting pot" is used to describe the United States of America. It is a country built on ideals such as freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and other basic human rights. These  ideals, though they may have originated from European men labeled as liberals, eventually captured followers from all over the world. Soon, America was a mixture of peoples with different ethnic backgrounds, religions, and cultures all working together for the "American Dream."

Lawrence W. Levine approaches the issue of ethnic relations in a slightly different light in his book, “The Opening of the American Mind”. He focuses on the two central components of the entire matter: One-way Assimilation (the melting pot ideology) and Cultural Pluralism, given that the two other models (Ethnic

What is it that makes a person multicultural? My story is about Daniella a young student at Roger Williams University who has been exposing herself to cultural space in Roger. It all begins with communication and her courage to socialize with different cultures. Intercultural relationships has been the key for her multicultural identity as mention in the book Intercultural Communications Globalization and Social Justice. Intercultural Relationships is the “human interaction with people from different religion, nationality or ethnicity”. (112) in my story I focus how she is been interacting in different cultural spaces. For example “Dia de los Muertos” a Mexican tradition. The event had verbal and non-verbal cultural communication. The behavior,

One of the most respected phenomena about the United States is its multiculturalism. After centuries of immigration, America today is a cultural melting pot shaped with a high prevalence of a diverse population originating from almost every corner of the planet. Moreover, in the wake of the liberal nature of the free world that has been made possible by a sound constitution that promotes individual liberties, the population of the United States is characterized with small minority groups that identify across certain common practices.

I enjoyed reading your post. I think that you defined what the melting pot means as well as gave great ideas regarding the differences between the melting pot and multicultural appreciation. The term melting pot is used when referring to American culture because it expresses how diverse the society is that helped create what is known as our society today as well as our American culture (Healey & O’Brien, 2015, p. 33).

Growing up in the United States i’ve learned that the idea of a multicultural society is embraced through communities in the United states of america. It is promoted everyday in the lives of us humans through our jobs, school, and out in public without even noticing it but not all people would agree with the idea. Every day on the news we see example on how citizens fight against one another just because they are of a different culture. We’ve been struggling with epidemic since our formation of this

“Multiculturalism" is the co-existence of diverse cultures, where culture includes racial, religious, or cultural groups and is manifested in customary behaviours, cultural assumptions and values, patterns of thinking, and communicative styles.” (Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia)

The United States is currently a country that is fairly diverse. In the near future the U.S. is projected to have no racial or ethnic group as it majority. As a result of this change our country would officially be a multicultural society. This change would bring some challenges as well as some advantages for some people.

It’s not been long since multiculturalism came into the wide public, early 1980’s. This made me wonder, why did it take so long for this to happen? It wasn’t a shock to me reading that the majority of teachers and administrative staff were white because you can’t expect for there to be people of color working this type of jobs when there are labels all over the city. But what exactly is multiculturalism? Well, the author provides us with multiple examples. A big one being globalization. “Multiculturalism also is directly related to global shifts of power, population, and culture in the era of globalization and “postcolonialism,” as nations around the world establish independence in the wake of the decline of Western empires.” (1) This means that Globalization was the first step to the melting pot, which is another aspect to multiculturalism.

Multiculturalism is also known as ethnic diversity relating to communities containing multiple cultures. The term is used in two different broad ways, descriptively and normatively. By using the descriptive term, we usually refer to the simple fact of cultural diversity. This can be applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place and sometimes at the organizational level such as schools, neighborhoods or nations. The normative term is often referred to ideologies or politics that promote this diversity or its institutionalization. The United States have been a magnet for people all over the globe, searching for a better life and bringing their own culture and traditions to a new vast country. No

Words as "bilingual" and "multiculturalism" express much more than someone's ability to speak two languages and to be familiar with more than one culture and so, the need to undrestand the depth of these concepts is imperative. Their significance is structured in layers, reffering to code switching, emotions, sculpting the personality, identity and cultural scripts, layers which are connected in a complex way.