The Negative Effects Of Monoculturalism In 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.

Many individuals interpret diversity differently specifically in the United States because of its melting pot of distinct cultures and lifestyles. In his essay “People Like Us”, David Brooks’ argues that although the United States is a diverse nation as a whole, it is homogeneous in specific aspects like interactions between people. To some extent, his observation is true; people tend to stick to what or who they are comfortable with. There are also exceptions where the American people attempt to establish relationships with others because of their desire to expand out of their norm. For instance, Brooks excludes the

American was dominated by the image of the melting pot that “melts up” all race differences and cultures to become on American culture. The ideas of multiculturalism started at the end of the nineteenth century and turned into the concept of cultural pluralism that defined the nation as a mixture of diverse ethnicities with different cultural backgrounds, all co-existing and contributing to the new nation.

Culture, ideas, and customs have sculpted this nation into the country that thrives today both socially and economically. Considering the history behind our melting pot of a country, how much of our “American” culture is American? Ishmael Reed delves into this topic and uncovers shocking truths that open the minds of the American nationalist that want to preserve the nations customs and not let other cultures consume our own “original” ideas. The article, America: The Multinational Society by Ishmael Reed uncovers the real uniqueness of “American” culture both past and present as well as good and bad. He uses well-known historical examples like the Puritans, personal experiences, the three modes of persuasion and modern ironic precedents that

“No metaphor can capture completely the complexity of ethnic dynamics in the U.S. ‘Melting pot’ ignores the persistence and reconfiguration of the ethnicity over the generations. ‘Mosaic,’ much more apt for pluralistic societies such as Kenya or India, is too static a metaphor; it fails to take in to account the easy penetration of many ethnic boundaries. Nor is ‘salad bowl’ appropriate; the ingredients of a salad bowl are mixed but do not change. ‘Rainbow’ is a tantalizing metaphor, but rainbows disappear. ‘Symphony,’ like ‘rainbow,’ implies near perfect harmony; both fail to take into account the variety and range of ethnic

The United States of America used to be known as the world’s largest melting pot. Meaning many different ethnicities and backgrounds coming and living with one another, and sharing each other’s culture. This can also be defined as assimilation. The United States of America has slowly drifted away from assimilation to isolating those who are different and diverse.

Multiculturalism is the process of immigration and globalization of societies in the world. The world is made up of a mix of many nationalities, cultures, groups, orientations, or ideologies. Multiculturalism involves the acknowledgment of the different groups of ethnic people, cultures, and regions as opposed to the accepting an ideology of a single cultural identity or nation. Interculturalism involves the aspects of anthropology, cultural learning, psychology, and communication. It is these factors that cause the conflict and contrast between different generations, ethnic groups from different regions, and different character traits. The evolution of these struggles provides the root of the formation of the humankind in the society. Finally, the concept of transculturalism is the blending of all human culture styles. It involves combining elements of more than one culture. Transculturalism creates history, diversity, and the support to one another in the formulation of various vibrant experiences.

America was widely known as a “melting pot” of sorts for many generations. The country earned its title by accepting immigrants of various cultures and molding, or melting, them into the American lifestyle. However, the “melting pot” idea of America is starting to dissipate. According to a Newsweek Poll on the public, “only 20 percent still think America is a melting pot” (Morganthau and Wolfberg, par.4). As more Americans push away immigrants and create stereotypes against said immigrants, America continues to lose its title as a “melting pot.” There is ethnic friction in America and people have begun to have a hard time assimilating (Morganthau and Wolfberg, par.18). .America is beginning to place a negative outlook on its

Culture is one of the diverse and quick changing phenomena. The American culture has been changing with time. However, despite the change and evolution of the culture, the rich elements of the culture have been passed through the generations (Colby, 597). In late 19th Century and early 20th Century the American culture was more concrete and focused on ethnicity background. The whites, the blacks, the natives, and the Latinos all brought their culture in their lives. The American people then tried to incorporate these cultures which by mid 20th century became synonymous with the American people. The blend of these cultures became rich and inspiring. During the time, the American became so much involved in overseas activities. In that way the American culture began to spread (power of persuasion, 7). Looking back at the time and the current times, the culture can be stated as relatively correlated. America is currently involved actively in overseas activities. The American culture is still blended just like the culture of the late19th Century and early 20th Century. American culture still influences other cultures in the world because America has a strong involvement in overseas activities.

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

Ethnocentrism is defined as, “having or based on the idea that your own group or culture is better or more important than others.” Society is impacted by everything from media exposure to political agendas. A good example of this can be found in America’s recent history with countries in the Middle East. Issues ranging from energy and oil to a campaign against terrorism have created strained relationships between the United States and countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan. As a result, it is nearly impossible to watch an evening news program on American television that does not contain a story related to current events in the Middle

In 2014, 35 million Americans identified as Hispanic, of whom 64 percent said they had Mexican heritage - almost 11 percent of the total population. As birthrates for Hispanics exceed those of Anglos, demographers estimate that by 2042 non-Hispanic whites will be a numerical minority in the United States. At the beginning of this century, there were twenty-one states where Hispanics were the largest ethnic minority.

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

The United States of America being the third largest country in the world with more than 315 million inhabitants, consists of multicultural societies with ethnically diverse population. Since there are a lot of foreigners, the US culture has evolved in such a way accepting and tolerating other foreign cultures. US is very much influenced by protestant work ethics according to which people believe in themselves and their efforts to attain the goal of self-actualization and success. The rich diversity in the culture brought by foreigners, prevailing values of protestant ethics, hard work etc. have helped US to emerge as a superpower in the past years. Nearly every religion had its impact on US culture in one way or the other. The

The “melting pot” culture refers to people from various cultures coming together to create a new unique culture. (Lorenzo, 2000) In other words, these cultures have ‘melted’ together in a ‘pot’. For example, Chinese, Koreans, Germans and more cultures blended in together to create a whole new American culture. They are not Chinese-Americans, Korean-Americans or German-Americans anymore but just Americans. On the other hand, “salad bowl” culture refers to immigrants who do not lose the aspects of their cultures. . (Lorenzo, 2000) To put it in another way, you can still clearly see the different ‘ingredients’ in a ‘salad bowl’. As a contrast to the melting pot theory’s example, Chinese-Americans, Korean-Americans and German-Americans will still keep the unique traits of their cultures while living together in the country. America has been traditionally referred to as a ‘melting pot’, but recently; there are people who argue that ‘salad bowl’ will be a better description of America’s society today.