Multiculturalism Essay Research Paper SUBJECT

Multiculturalism Essay, Research Paper

SUBJECT = SOCIOLOGY

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All Human beings live in what for them is a Multicultural world, in which they are aware of different sets of others to whom different cultural attributions must be made, and of different cultures of which they are aware and expected to operate.

W.H. Woodenough.

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TITLE = MULTICULTURALRISM

The term Multiculturalism has recently come into usage to describe a society characterized by a diversity of cultures. Religion, language, customs, traditions, and values are some of the components of a culture, but more importantly culture is the lens through which one perceives and interprets the world.

When shared culture forms the basis for a “sense of peoplehood”, based on consciousness of a common past, we can speak of a group possessing an Ethnicity. Ethnicity is not transmitted genetically from generation to generation; nor is it unchanging over time. Rather ethnicity is invented or constructed in response to particular historical circumstances and changes as circumstances change.

In this essay, ethnicity will be used to identify groups or communities that are differentiated by religious, racial, or cultural characteristics and that possess a sense of people-hood.

The “Multicultural America” is the product of the mingling of many different peoples over the hundred years in what is now the United States. Cultural diversity was characteristic of this continent prior to the coming of European colonists and African slaves. The indigenous inhabitants of North America who numbered an estimated 4.5 million in 1500 were divided into hundreds of tribes with distinctive cultures,

Languages, and religions. Although the numbers of “Indians” as they were named by Europeans, declined precipitously through the nineteenth century, their population has rebounded in the twentieth century. Both as members of their particular tribes (a form of ethnicity), Navajo, Ojibwa, Choctaw, etc., and as American Indians (a form of panethnicity), they are very much a part of today’s cultural and ethnic pluralism.

MAKING OF MULTICULTURAL AMERICA

The present United states includes not only the original thirteen colonies, but lands that were subsequently purchased or conquered. Through this territorial expansion, other peoples were brought within the boundaries of the republic; these included, in addition to many Native American tribes, French, Hawaiian, Intuit, Mexican, and Puerto Rican, among others. Since 1790, population growth, other than by natural increase, has come primarily through three massive waves of immigration. During the first wave (1841-1890), almost 15 million immigrants arrived; over four million Germans, three million each of Irish and British (English, Scottish, and Welsh), and one million Scandinavians. A second wave (1891- 1920) brought an additional 18 million immigrants: almost four million from Italy, 3.6 million from Austria-Hungry, and three million from Russia. Canadians, Anglo and French, immigrated prior to 1920. The intervening decades, from 1920 to 1945, marked a hiatus in immigration due to restrictive policies, economic depression, and war. A modest post-world war II influx of refugees was followed by a new

Surge subsequent to changes in immigration policy in 1965. Totalling approximately 16 million – and still

In progress, this third wave encompassed some four million from Mexico, another four million form Central & South America and the Caribbean, and rougly six million from Asia. While almost 90 percent of the first two waves originated in Europe, only 12 percent of the third did.

Immigration has introduced an enormous diversity of cultures into American Society. Immigration also contributed to the transformation of the religious character of the United States. Its original Protestantism (itself divided among many denominations and sects) was both reinforced by the arrival of Lutherans, methodists, persbyterians, etc and diluted by the heavy influx of Roman catholics-first the Irish and Germans, then Eastern Europeans and Italians, and more recently Hispanics. Smaller numbers of

Buddhists, Hindus, and followers of other religions have also arrived. In many American cities, houses of worship now include mosques and temples as well as churches and synagogues. Such religious pluralism

is an important source of American multiculturalism. The immigration and naturalizaton policies pursued by a country are a key to understanding its self conception as a nation. If the capacity of American society

To absorb some 55 million immigrants over the course of a century and a half is impressive, it is also,true

That American history has been punctuated by ugly episodes of nativism and xenophobia. With the possible exception of the British, it is dificullt to find an immigrant group that has not been subject to some degree of prejudice and discrimination.

Not all Anglo-Americans were racists or xenophobes. Citing Christian and democratic ideals of universal brotherhood, many advocated the abolition of slavery and the rights of freedmen – freedom of religion and cultural tolerance.

Multiculturalism is not a museum of immigra

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