The Multiculturalism of London: Perceptions of Five Authors

To the bourgeois man, London appeared to be an exhilarating urban scene, brimming with diversity and culture. Many upper-class

In their paper, “Heightening Awareness about the Importance of Using Multicultural Literature,” the authors, Susan A. Colby and Anna F. Lyon, express the importance of how teachers should provide multicultural literature in today’s classrooms, and how the role of literature of this type plays an essential role in the lives of children.

What are the three umbrellas of multiculturalism? Which of them do you think described your experience in the United States?

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.

But on arrival not only do the make new connections to the place, but also that culture and its inhabitants. They also educate their children on how to live in their new home, teaching language and culture and shaping their children to succeed in the new environment. This doesn’t mean they reject their native culture, as we see in Brick lane in London, the Bangladeshi community is often referred to as Diasporic, having brought significant parts of their native culture with them. And establishing an abundance of Bangladeshi restaurants serving their native cuisine and shops which supply authentic Bangladeshi food, clothing, and music. Many local support groups exist to provide support to the community, commonly offering their services in the Bengali language.

What defines a multicultural society and what category does the United States fall within. The idea and topic behind the concept of the “Melting Pot” and also “Gorgeous Mosaic.” Among other things, this essay will also discuss the similarities and differences within the author’s of “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” “ The Joy of reading and writing.” how did this two author from different ethics group suffer in many aspects the same dilemma because of our so call “multicultural” society and fought against the assimilation of who they really are.

Whether one wants to look at someone else’s life or examine their own, it is important to decide whether or not it was a meaningful life that was worth living. No one wants to leave this earth knowing that they didn't do anything special with their life. What it means to live a meaningful life can differ among different people or different cultures. However, perhaps the biggest influence is education. Education absolutely plays a huge role in contributing to a meaningful life.

Another goal of mine is to be able to practice cultural humility, a term I learned in a multiculturalism course in my undergrad. I plan to work with as many populations as I can throughout my career. I have my biases and generalizations of people and I want to be able to address them in a diverse classroom environment before going into the work field. I am most interested in working with and learning about Children, Youth and Women during my advanced year of study. Specifically with adolescents because of my plans to work in the CSEC field.

Multiculturalism is known as the presence of, or support for the presence of, several distinct cultural or ethnic groups within a society. In the 2001 census 7.5% of the population were people born abroad. This figure has been increasing and the 2011 census reported a figure of 13%. Certain issues however tend to arise with these ‘multicultural societies’ due to various different factors, one of them being the economy. In the UK there has been legislation on anti-racism, employment rights and equal opportunities to combat discrimination, prejudice and racism. Despite this, the cost of state benefits can cause resentment and racial intolerance. In 2002 it was calculated that the net tax contribution of migrants to the UK economy was £2.5 billion

Since 9/11, support for multiculturalism has dropped in many liberal states like Australia and Britain. In many western democracies Muslims are perceived as potential terrorists who carry illiberal practices and are unable to embrace the values and norms of the liberal system. In Britain, multiculturalism was blamed for the atrocities caused by the terrorist attacks of London 2005. More recently the issue of ISIS has created lots of worries in Britain and the country seems to suffer from not only a multiculturalism crisis but also an identity crisis. Prime Minister David Cameron made it clear in his speech in a security conference held in Munich 2011 that the policies of multiculturalism that were applied in the past have created a fragmented

Everyday, we as human beings see men and women of different races and colors going about life. Some of these people are celebrities, our coworkers, and friends. People that are of different ethnic diversity than white Europeans are seen as the minority. This is a fact that is backed by many references across the world and even in articles we read today. In Enzo Colombo’s article “Multiculturalisms: An overview in western societies” he believes that minorities should be given the same opportunities as everyone else, he starts with the political figures then applies his theory to the society as a whole. However, in Douglas Hartmann’s article “Reflections on Race, Diversity, And the Crossroads of Multiculturalism” he explains that diversity is associated with race and filtered through a racial lens meaning the same ethnic people are unaware of the disparities, inequalities, and injustices that are associated with social difference in this country. Instead of describing ways to fix the unethical discrimination of minority groups, Hartmann gives an analysis of how other people view minorities, leading me to take a stand agreeing with Colombo’s viewpoints. When I hear the word multiculturalism, I associate personality with it. Although biology makes up our genes, DNA, and what we look like, biology doesn’t make us who we are as people. Biology is just something we are born with and stuck with, only we can decide how we act around others.

In accordance with her beliefs, the reader determines Smith’s perspective on multiculturalism, that it must be an integral aspect of a society, as ascertained through her condescending statements on “Northern Ireland, an area where people who look absolutely identical to each other, eat the same food, pray to the same God, read the same holy book, wear the same clothes, and celebrate the same holidays” (Smith, On Optimism and Despair, The New York Review of Books). If this aspect of cultural diversity lacks within the society at large, then an entire country will be homogenous, beating to the drum of conformity. Observed in multiple facets throughout the world, an absence of multiculturalism becomes a world that has, “purged a small Italian village of its Jews and, by virtue of its physical distance from Milan,” while the rest of the village remains predominately white and catholic, unaware of their exclusionary practices (Smith, On Optimism and Despair, The New York Review of Books). Juxtaposed with her examples of homogeneity, Smith then provides her example of a perfect execution of multiculturalism: her father. She proudly declares of her father, that, “In his mind he did not marry a black girl, he married ‘Yvonne,’ and he did not have an experimental set of mixed-race children, he had me and my brother Ben and my brother Luke” (Smith, On Optimism and Despair,

What does Diversity and Multiculturalism mean to me? I believe that diversity has become so much more than just the basic qualities of race or gender. It now includes all qualities that make everyone unique, as individuals or as part of a larger group. It is also the acceptance, respect, and understanding of these unique qualities that makes diversity work in a given society. Multiculturalism is the system that is centered around the respect for and the promotion of ethnic and or gender diversity in the society. Multiculturalism is the status of several different ethnic, racial, religious or cultural groups co-existing in the same society. Today, in the U.S. we already

As the majority of people have different definitions of the word multiculturalism as well as different views on the cultural and political impacts, I will put forward the different views throughout the chosen texts. As stated in the text ‘The successes and failures of multiculturalism’, the author defines the idea of multiculturalism as “the essence of multiculturalism is the idea that, if one makes immigrants feel welcome by allowing them to retain their culture and by seeking to address discrimination against them.” (Manning, A. 2011, page 1) This text argues that the apprehension about multiculturalism is interconnected to the conviction that in the United Kingdom, not all the minority groups that are living here consider themselves to be British, due to their ethnicity. In the table showing the Percentages Reporting a British National Identity by Ethnicity, on the second page of the ‘The successes and failures of multiculturalism’ text written by Alan Manning in 2011, it is shown that each different ethnic minority group have certain percentage of their population living in the United Kingdom that consider themselves to be British nationals, whether they were born in the United Kingdom, or abroad. Though the percentages diverge between each minority group, there are still a large number of people that consider themselves as British Nationals (Manning,

Multicultural literature is a way of increasing cultural awareness. Through multicultural books many young readers are able to make a connection with their own culture