Protecting Cultural Distinctiveness: The Key to a Thriving Future in America

America has, is, and will always be a nation of immigrants: the great melting pot. In the years that have passed since Emma Lazarus' poem was inscribed on the Statue of Liberty "the golden door" Americans have seen times when the door was open wide and times when it was close shut to most immigrants (Sure 4). Many people look at the present immigration problems as a purely modern dilemma. The truth is America has always struggled with the issue of immigration, both legal and illegal. Changing times, however, makes it imperative that our government reexamines and adjusts today's immigration laws to today's standards. Those standards, however, are not easily defined. Too often the issue of

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.

Several years ago, America was taught to be a 'melting pot,' a place where immigrants of different cultures or races form an integrated society, but now America is more of a 'salad bowl' where instead of forming an incorporated entity the people who make up the bowl are unwilling to unite as one. America started as an immigrant nation and has continued to be so. People all over the world come to America for several reasons. Most people come to America voluntarily, but very few come unwillingly. For whatever reasons they may have for coming they all have to face exposure to American society. When exposed to this 'new' society they choose whether to assimilate or not. Assimilation

The United States has been a host to a wide diaspora of people. Immigrants have had to transition from their familiar land to a new-fashioned foreign land that they must consider home. They bring with them the essence of their initial homeland such as customs, traditions and beliefs that inadvertently change the dynamics of culture within the United States. As a result the United States is an extremely culturally diverse nation. The continual changes or accretions that Americans encounter have always been a controversial topic depending on the experiences of individuals and communities that have immigrant populations. This essay will critically explore

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

Millions of immigrants over the previous centuries have shaped the United States of America into what it is today. America is known as a “melting pot”, a multicultural country that welcomes and is home to an array of every ethnic and cultural background imaginable. We are a place of opportunity, offering homes and jobs and new economic gains to anyone who should want it. However, America was not always such a “come one, come all” kind of country. The large numbers of immigrants that came during the nineteenth century angered many of the American natives and lead to them to blame the lack of jobs and low wages on the immigrants, especially the Asian communities. This resentment lead to the discrimination and legal exclusion of immigrants,

In order for assimilation to occur a minority group becomes an integrated part of the majority group; this assimilation results in non-distinguishing of one group from another by cultural characteristics. In order for this process to be complete, it must entail, not only an active effort by the minority group to shed all distinguishing actions and beliefs, and also complete unqualified acceptance of that individual by the dominant society.

Many researchers have studied the immigrant assimilation in the recent years. America’s ethnic groups have been expected to come together as one and into the mainstream of american society for decades. Immigrant assimilation is a complex process in which immigrants should not only fully integrate themselves to a new country but also lose aspects perhaps all their heritage too if necessary. Social scientists rely on a primary benchmark to assess immigrant assimilation which is socioeconomic status. A melting pot can be described as a metaphor which indicates a society where many different types of people blend in as one.

In the United States, the cliché of a nation of immigrants is often invoked. Indeed, very few Americans can trace their ancestry to what is now the United States, and the origins of its immigrants have changed many times in American history. Despite the identity of an immigrant nation, changes in the origins of immigrants have often been met with resistance. What began with white, western European settlers fleeing religious persecution morphed into a multicultural nation as immigrants from countries across the globe came to the U.S. in increasing numbers. Like the colonial immigrants before them, these new immigrants sailed to the Americas to gain freedom, flee poverty and

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

The United States is often called a melting pot because of the vast array of cultures that all live in the country. People have come from every corner of the world to settle in the United States. In recent years, the influx of immigration has become a contentious issue. Some people believe that the US is overpopulated and that further immigration poses a danger to the country while others contend that the US was built on immigration and that it is un-American to prohibit people from living here if they so wish. The articles "5 Myths About Immigration" and "The Challenge of Diversity" detail the different issues which are related to the immigration issue, both discuss the amount of immigration that occurs, the fear of immigrants taking jobs from American citizens, and the idea that immigrants are reluctant to assimilate into the American culture.

Alejandro Portes and Min Zhou introduced the concept of segmented assimilation, which stressed a three-part path: assimilation for those with advantages in human capital, an ethnic disadvantage for some because of poverty and racialization, and the selective retention of ethnicity for yet others. Assessing present levels of assimilation among today's immigrant groups requires considering the possibility that the process itself may be changing. To ascertain this, we must first understand three major theories of immigrant and ethnic-group integration. The theories are the classic and new assimilation models, the racial/ethnic disadvantage model, and the segmented assimilation model. One of the general, classic assimilation theory sees immigrant/ethnic

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).

The United States embraces people of many languages, religions and other cultural groups. There are millions of immigrants who enter the United States each year and its becoming clear that it’s important to respect other cultures, form relationships and partnership with different cultural groups. In order to build strong communities that can accomplish remarkable change, large number of people are required to work together. If every culture joins together, they will have a higher success rate in reaching common goals, than if they act separately.

The reasons why advocates of multiculturalism argue that tolerating and accommodating differences strengthen national unity are as follows. Primarily, accepting other society’s culture and religion encourages individuals of the respective culture to come together to form strong bonds, which is an important aspect of national unity. Secondly, a nation formed of different societies and cultures, example like Canada, USA, and so on, benefits from accepting and adhering to the philosophies of multiculturalism to encourage the growth of that nation. Moreover, consideration of multiculturalism forms strong bonds between people of different cultures and encourages better communication, and greater cohesiveness, which in turn creates a stronger nation. Hence it is advisable to encourage this principle of diversity. Another advantage of embracing multiculturalism allows immigrants to feel accepted and safe in their new adopted country. This feeling embosses a sense of belonging and ownership, which are important aspects of every citizen. Furthermore, embracing multiculturalism advances society by achieving greater innovations by allowing those with different outlooks or perspectives to speak and contribute to society.