Multiculturalism In Ja Jay's The Melting Pot

Modern America is considered to be a melting pot, in which a variety of races, cultures, or individuals gather into a unified whole. The ideas of being a new American for people who have migrated from their homeland to America are to leave behind all their past cultures and practices and embrace their new American ways. Is that what really happens? If it was, would there be still racism in America? The number of people immigrating to America has risen over the years, but so has the number of active hate groups. The idea of unity in the melting pot of America is a myth because of racism, stereotypes, prejudice, and cultural segregation of its people.

Multicultural America has been shaped by many different groups of people. Becoming an American is the goal of people of different cultures and ethnic groups, however the path to become an American is not easy for certain groups of people. Omi and Winant say “racial categories and the meaning of race are given concrete expression by the specific social relations and historical context in which they are embedded” to illustrate that race among separate ethnic groups has developed over time. Separate ethnic groups had to face endless amounts of discrimination in their own ways to establish what was reasonable and fair to their group as a nation.The distinct line between inclusion and exclusion or universal rights and limitations, creates the question of  “who really is an American?”  On the other hand, members of other ethnic groups have impacted politics, social environments, and in the economy to establish a multicultural nation.

Multiculturalism, according to Tariq Modood, is the "recognition of group difference within the public sphere of laws, policies, democratic discourses and the terms of a shared citizenship and national identity" (Modood 2). On the surface, this would appear to be a good and healthy thing: ethnicities are encouraged to retain their respective cultural identities and retain the customs that are their heritage. And yet there is something devious about the idea: it sees in terms of "groups." The idea is like a pie: each culture is given a slice in the much larger pie that is the nation. You may enjoy

The Author Marable defines “multiculturalism” as “the recognition that our nation’s cultural heritage that does not begin and end with the intellectual and aesthetic products of Western Europe, rather multiculturalism rejects the model of cultural assimilation and social conformity.” However, Multiculturalism is often been misinterpreted, Marable according to him said that, the “melting pot” never existed.

Therefore, as Christian Joppke aptly points out, “the direct origin of multiculturalism is America’s unresolved race problem” (Joppke 2011, 36). Indeed, in light of the aforementioned historical processes, multiculturalism began (and developed into the official multiculturalism of the 80s and 90s) as something quite similar to a “racial project” a la Omi and Winant. Seen as an integral step in guiding racial formation, Michael Omi and Howard Winant defines a racial project as following (Omi and Winant 1994,56):

Categories for people who are able to embody multiple cultures ranges from 3 or 4 groups with some common overlap of ideas. Yampolsky, Amiot, and Sablonnière (2015) have three main configurations to describe multicultural identity: categorization, compartmentalization, and integration. In the creation of MULTIIS, the questions, and items revolved around the concepts of what each configuration is. Categorization tends to emphasize and reflect the dominant culture (Pg 168). Their identity is revolved around and exclusive to the majority culture. This is similar to Iwamoto and Liu (2010) conformity, in which a person of a nonwhite ethnic background disregards their native culture in favor of the dominant (white) culture.(Iwamoto & Liu, 2010, pg 81). Both of these groups might see themselves as “white washed” or not a representative of the native culture. It contrasts

he broad definition of multiculturalism is typically defined as ideas and beliefs that are different from people living in different countries thus allowing them to have cultural backgrounds. But when people from various cultural background live amongst each other in the country this can be called a multicultural community.There are many speculations that adhere to the fact that it is impossible for multiple cultures to live within a society peacefully. But with four well defined articles Multiculturalism and "American" religion: the case of Hindu Indian Americans, Multicultural community organizing: a strategy for change, Multiculturalism is dead? Not quite yet., and The emergence of religious plurality in Australia: a multicultural

Multiculturalism as argued by Himani Bannerji in "The Dark Side, of the Nation: Essays on Multiculturalism, Nationalism and Gender," (1996) acts like a thin veil that hides European settler-colonist, even racist, ideologies which permeate the socio-political landscape of Canada. Bannerjii applies a Marxist perspective as she questions the notion of multiculturalism in Canada that is separated from existing power relations and social structures (p.110). The author critiques the discourse of multiculturalism that allows the Canadian state to limit its understanding of multiculturalism to “difference” thus neglecting class, gender, sexuality and other social factors while preserving its post-colonial capitalist and oppressive structures. Bannerjii

The United States has a motto, e pluribus unum, that suggests that in America, embracing diversity creates unity. Long ago, during the 1900s, assimilation was considered to be crucial in order for a naturalization process to occur. Immigrants were forced to assimilate and adopt to the American culture, in which they had never been introduced to before. Over time, things evolved and changed to the point where people began to assimilate to a certain point, but still have their cultural traditions, giving America a nickname known as the Melting Pot. America being known as “The Melting Pot,” defends the claim that in today’s society, The United States of America is moving toward a new standard in which diversity and individuality are encouraged more than uniformity and conformity.

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).

In today’s world being different is not considered a good thing. Recent movements such as “Black Lives Matter” have sparked a flame to many people that being different is tough. Today, the United States of America is still struggling to accept diversity and individuality towards todays accepted status quo.

There is a nation of individuals who have the great privilege of living in the United States of America. Though, even in its greatness, America has its flaws. As would any other country, no body of people can attain perfection, because perfectionistic standards are simply unrealistic. Often times, the U.S. has been referred to as the ‘great melting pot’. The American culture has grown into a blend of many different ethnicities, lifestyles and beliefs. While this is something to be celebrated, what should be an opportunity for equal representation and distribution of cultures is instead a tendency to rely heavily upon and project a particular agenda (and a powerful one at that). There is not only a racial divide in this country, but the unjustified issue of sexism. While sexism in context applies to both genders, the bulk of the problem leans heavily towards the male treatment of females. In nearly every corner of society, the past and present America has been a society dominated by men.

Multiculturalism is the act of giving equivalent consideration regarding various foundations in a specific setting, and it can happen when a purview is made or extended by amalgamating zones with two or more diverse societies or through migration from various locales around the globe. Multiculturalism that seeks in keeping up the peculiarity of numerous societies is regularly differentiated to other settlement arrangements, for example, social mix, social osmosis, and racial isolation. Multiculturalism has been depicted as a "salad bowl" and "cultural mosaic" (Burgess, et al. 2005). In spite of the way that multiculturalism has predominantly been utilized as a term to characterize distraught gatherings, numerous scholars tend to center their contentions on outsiders who are ethnic and religious minorities, minority countries, and indigenous people groups. The term multiculturalism is frequently utilized as a part of a reference to Western country states, which

The North and South American continents have been inhabited from ancient times by migrating humans. The first migrations are believed to have occurred by Asians who crossed the frozen Bering Strait from Siberia. When Columbus first crossed the great Atlantic Ocean he mistakenly labeled these natives ‘Indians’, believing he had arrived in India. Europeans then began migrating in mass to this ‘new world’ dividing up the lands of the aboriginals into nations. The greatest of these nations became the United States, which included peoples who had migrated mostly from Western Europe, slaves that had been brought over from Africa and the original natives. These new American citizens of European descent

Multiculturalism is a term which means that many people who have different cultures, traditions, or foods live in the same community. In our contemporary society, Canada, Netherlands, Australia, and France are the well-known multicultural countries in the world. In the article “The Voice of Conservatism in Europe”, the author covers the topic about the background of multiculturalism. According to the author, multiculturalism originated in the United States pursuing the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s, so, it was conveyed to the rest of the Western world through American cultural impact and was accumulated by Western Europe. In addition, economic Marxism that was the prevailing theory in the world switched to multiculturalism and maintained the censorship of anti-racism in the 1980s (Fjordman, paragraph 3, 4, page 8). Likewise, it demonstrated that multiculturalism was the controversial issue still in the past.