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FROM THE RISING sales of rap music to the popularity of Spanish-language television, from the mosques and temples that have changed the skylines of many cities and towns to the sea of faces on the streets of New York, Chicago, or Miami—the signs are everywhere that America is the largest multicultural democracy in the world, and it is growing more diverse every day. More than a million immigrants flood into the country each year, bringing with them traditions, languages, cultures, and religions from around the world. As they settle in cities and towns across America and become neighbors, friends, and colleagues of current residents, they change the face of the nation. It is no longer possible to determine who is an American by a person's skin color, ethnicity, or religious beliefs. Even the nation's popular culture—the music people listen to, the fashions they wear, the movies and television programs they watch—is a uniquely American blend that has begun to cross racial and ethnic lines. This is especially true for the youngest Americans, those under twenty-five, who belong to the most racially and ethnically diverse generation in U.S. history.

Although the image of the "typical" American is certainly changing, it is not yet clear what impact this will have on the nation's institutions, ideals, and values. America's founders could not have envisioned a country in which Latinos represent more than a quarter of the population in some cities, Buddhists and Muslims live next door to Christians and Jews, and African Americans serve as Supreme Court justices and secretaries of state. The U.S. Constitution guarantees equal treatment under the law to all Americans, but one of the greatest challenges of a multicultural society has been ensuring that this guarantee truly extends to everyone. Many laws and public policies have been challenged or amended over the years to try to make the promise of equal treatment for all Americans a reality. Yet the nation still struggles to overcome prejudice and discrimination against its minority racial and ethnic groups.

Changing fast

In the years since the civil rights movement of the 1960s ended a painful history of state-enforced segregation between black and white Americans, the country's racial mix has grown far more complicated and confusing. This is because immigrants of all races continue to arrive in America from around the world. The rate of intermarriage between people of different races, religions, and ethnic groups is also on the rise. With multiracial children one of the fastest growing segments of the population, the lines between the races are no longer clear. To make matters even more confusing, many of the racial and ethnic categories the nation uses to define people have become outdated. America's government, courts, schools, media, and religious and cultural institutions are still struggling to catch up.

Adding to th.....


Chapter 1: The Changing Face of the Nation

IN THE SMALL factory town of Morganton, North Carolina, the priest of the local Catholic church delivers his mass in English, Spanish, and Hmong, the language spoken by a growing community of immigrants from the Southeast Asian country of Laos. Just north of the towering skyscrapers of Dallas, Texas, the families of fifty thousand mostly African immigrants and refugees crowd into apartment buildings that were once home to white middle-income commuters. Visitors to New York City's heavily trafficked Canal Street find Vietnamese markets, Indian-owned electronics stores, and fast-food restaurants that serve everything from Chinese dim sum to Middle Eastern falafel.

From the great city of New York to small towns like Morganton, America is growing increasingly diverse. Americans today claim a wide variety of racial, religious, linguistic, and cultural backgrounds. In contrast to many nations of the world, such as Japan or Sweden, where a majority of the population shares a common ethnic or racial heritage, America is becoming the largest multicultural democracy in the world.
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Defining multicultural

The word multicultural means "of several cultures." It is most often used as an umbrella term to include multiracial, "of several races" and multiethnic, "of several ethnic groups." Yet the words race, ethnicity, and culture can be difficult to pin down, in part because they are sometimes used interchangeably. Race is usually defined in terms of shared physical characteristics, while ethnic groups are said to have traits in common such as religion, language, and ancestral heritage. Culture refers to all of the social behaviors, such as language, art, and religious beliefs, that are shared by a particular ethnic group.

America is multicultural in the sense that it is composed of people of many cultures. There are Americans of every race and skin color. Their ethnic origins are Native American, European, Asian, African, and Latin American. They worship at churches, synagogues, mosques, and Buddhist or Hindu temples in cities and towns across the country. It is not uncommon to hear Spanish in downtown Albuquerque or Hindi in Seattle. The nation's laws and institutions are rooted in western European ideals about democracy and human rights, but being an American does not imply belonging to any particular race, ethnicity, or religion.

Why is the nation culturally diverse"

The main reason for America's increasing diversity is the almost unprecedented numbers of immigrants arriving in the country. The United States has always been a nation of immigrants, yet levels of immigration today are the highest they have ever been in the post–World War II era. More than 1 million immigrants enter the country every year. The result is that one in every ten people living in the United States was born somewhere else .....

Census 2000: Snapshot of America

Every ten years since 1790, the U.S. government has conducted a massive national survey, or census, that tracks the nation's demographic changes. The fed.....

The difficulty of counting people by race

It has become harder than ever in recent years to categorize and label people by race because of the numerous ethnic groups that have arrived in.....

Interracial marriage and the complexity of race

Counting by race has become even more confusing as the rate of intermarriage between people of different racial and ethnic groups rises, b.....

Religious diversity in America

The census does not keep track of Americans' religious beliefs, but the religious composition of America has changed as well. Immigrants from all over the .....

The regional character of diversity

Even though rising levels of immigration and interfaith and interracial marriage are changing the face of America, not everyone experiences the nation.....

Ethnic pioneers in the nation's heartland

Outside of the nation's melting pot metros, ethnic and racial diversity is just beginning to reach other parts of the country. "Ethnic pioneers,.....

The persistence of segregation

Even within the melting pot areas where the nation's population is racially diverse, segregation is still common in neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces......

What does it mean to be an American"

In light of the nation's increasing diversity, many people have begun to question what it means to be an American. They wonder if there are values an.....


Chapter 2: America's Racial and Ethnic Tensions

IN THE SCORCHING Arizona desert near the Mexican border, small groups of men stand guard. They are armed with guns, dogs, binoculars, and high-tech surveillance equipment that allows them to transmit pictures directly to the Internet. They are self-proclaimed vigilantes, people who have taken the law into their own hands. They have vowed to stop illegal immigrants who try to make the dangerous crossing from Mexico each day to live and work in the United States. These vigilantes believe that the nation is under siege from immigrant groups and that the U.S. government is not doing enough to prevent it.

The existence of such people makes it clear that not everyone welcomes the changing face of the nation. Indeed, there are tensions and challenges that result when people of vastly different cultural, linguistic, religious, and racial backgrounds live together in one nation under a single government and legal system, and share the same schools, workplaces, and neighborhoods. While some people view diversity as one of America's greatest strengths, others are uncertain or even resentful of the demographic changes.
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"Immigrants make life ... better"

Many people believe that the country should keep its doors open to new immigrants from around the world. They say that America has a responsibility to extend its freedoms to people fleeing poverty and oppression. Just as in earlier generations, new immigrants come to America seeking better lives for themselves and their children, and the nation should continue to be a safe haven for such people.

Immigrants of different cultural backgrounds also enrich American life and culture. Though some of the newcomers are poor or have limited job skills, they often work long hours in difficult, low-wage jobs, and rank high among the entrepreneurs and small business owners who spur America's economic growth. In some towns, immigrants open shops, businesses, and restaurants that offer specialized foods and products. Many immigrants maintain strong family values that also exert a positive influence on American society. In many Latin American and Asian countries, for example, children are committed to caring for and supporting elderly parents and grandparents. Young people are taught to respect their parents and take an active role in family life. These traditions continue in America. "Immigrants make life dramatically better for everybody in the places they come to, not just themselves," one journalist writes.

Anti-immigrant sentiment

Some people, however, especially those who fear the decline of white America, would like to place strict limits on immigration. Anti-immigrant sentiment tends to be strongest at times of economic downturn when jobs are scarce or when Americans feel a heightened sense of insecurity, as when the nation is at war or under threat of terrorist attack. The increasing visibility of ille.....

A rise in hate crimes

At its extremes, the hostility toward immigrants and other nonwhites has fueled a steady rise in hate crimes over the past decade. Hate crimes are defined as any cr.....

Tensions between ethnic groups

In some places, tensions between America's diverse ethnic and racial groups have erupted in wide-scale political struggles and even violence. Often these t.....

The difficulty of dialogue

With sensitivities on all sides, it has become difficult to carry out an honest dialogue about race and ethnicity in America. Whites, African Americans, and ot.....

Building bridges between groups

Despite the difficulty of dialogue, there have been meaningful efforts over the years to build bridges between racial and ethnic groups in America. Some g.....

Diversity and tolerance

Politicians and religious leaders in America often speak of the need for tolerance in a multicultural society. Tolerance has come to mean recognition and respect .....

Chapter 3: Racial and Ethnic Discrimination

ONE MONTH AFTER nineteen Middle Eastern Arabs carried out the September 2001 terrorist attacks, Boy Scout leader Khalil Baydoun and five Arab American members of his troop were traveling by ferry from Mackinac Island, Michigan, after a long day of bicycle riding. A fellow passenger on the ferry noticed the boys using walkie-talkies and taking photographs of the Mackinac Bridge, and, in the tense post-attack atmosphere, he grew suspicious. The passenger called the police, and after the ferry docked, Baydoun and the five scouts were taken to a van, where they were detained for ninety minutes while the FBI ran background checks. When the boys were allowed to briefly step out of the van to watch a parade of trucks decorated with American flags pass by, they heard onlookers shouting "Death to the Arabs!"

The boys were all teenagers who had been born in the United States. They told reporters that they believed they had been discriminated against solely because of their ethnicity. "What they did to us was not right," said Mustafa Hazime. "I feel unsafe in this world." Yet at a time of national unrest, many Americans felt that incidents such as this were a small price to pay for heightened security against terrorism. In their view, concerns for the public welfare outweighed the rights of individuals who fit a certain racial or ethnic profile.
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In principle, the U.S. Constitution, together with the nation's civil rights laws (first passed in 1960) guarantee the same rights and protections to all Americans. In practice, as the incident with the Michigan Boy Scouts makes clear, it has proved difficult to ensure equal treatment under the law to members of all of the racial, ethnic, and religious groups that make up America's increasingly multicultural society.

Civil rights for all Americans

As America becomes more diverse, a growing number of racial, ethnic, and religious groups have begun to look to the Constitution and the nation's civil rights laws for protection. The Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, passed in 1868, declares that no state may "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." Yet for decades after its passage, judges and lawmakers did not see a contradiction between the equal protection clause and a system of segregation that forced black Americans to the back of buses and into separate classrooms, hotels, and restaurants.

In 1964, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act. The new law abolished the most blatant forms of racism in employment, schools, and public facilities. It stated that no person in the United States could be subject to discrimination "on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin." Later laws took the nondiscrimination policy even further, extending it to voting, housing, jury selection, and other areas.

The Constitution and the nation's civil rights laws also protect the growing number of religi.....

The persistence of racial discrimination

Despite progress since the passage of the civil rights laws in eliminating the most open forms of racism, more subtle discrimination still exists.....

Religious discrimination

Americans with religious practices outside of the Christian mainstream are also subject to discrimination. References to religion and God are commonplace in Amer.....

Religious discrimination at school

In the nation's public schools, there is an ongoing debate about how to treat students who hold a variety of religious beliefs. According to U.S. law, .....

The practice of racial profiling

The question of what constitutes equal treatment under the law extends not only to schools and workplaces, but also to law enforcement. Indeed, a growing.....

Justifying racial profiling

Whether it is effective or not, many people wonder if using racial profiling is ever justified. As public policy, racial profiling is prohibited under the law.....

The social costs of racial profiling

Despite its usefulness in certain situations, racial profiling carries with it significant social costs for a multicultural society. African American.....

Combating discrimination: Affirmative action

In the face of racial profiling and other more subtle forms of prejudice, many Americans question how far the U.S. government should go in co.....

The value of diversity

In recent years, the goal of affirmative action programs has shifted from compensating for racial discrimination to promoting greater diversity in universities and.....

Arguments against affirmative action

Although the arguments for greater diversity have growing support in the academic and business worlds, some people believe that affirmative action ha.....

Chapter 4: Educating a Diverse Generation

IN 1991 THE school board in Oakland, California, was set to review new history textbooks that had been approved by the state legislature for use in the public schools. The student population in Oakland at the time was culturally diverse—more than 70 percent African American, Asian American, and Latino, and 24 percent white. Yet for years, Oakland's teachers had been forced to rely on outdated history textbooks that included stereotypes and misinformation about the nation's racial and ethnic minorities.

The new textbooks featured the voices and experiences of Americans from a wide range of racial and ethnic backgrounds, and included boxes within the text that highlighted the lives and accomplishments of important African American, Native American, and Latino figures such as Frederick Douglass (the former slave, writer, and orator who fought for the abolition of slavery) and Cesar Chavez (who struggled to improve conditions for migrant farmworkers from Mexico). In the spring of 1991, the editors of the new textbooks arrived in Oakland to take part in an open meeting to which teachers, school administrators, parents, and members of the Oakland community were invited to voice their reactions to the new books. The editors were not prepared for the controversy that erupted.
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From the start, the audience was angry and restless. Many people took the floor to attack the texts for focusing too heavily on white Europeans and their ideas. An African American man charged that the books trivialized the horrible experience of slavery and reflected a racist point of view. Several Chinese American parents complained that their ancestors were hardly mentioned in the volumes on California history. A young Japanese American woman claimed that the textbooks' account of Japanese American internment in camps during World War II downplayed the suffering of the prisoners.

Textbook editor and historian Gary Nash defended his choices. He pointed to examples in the books in which the experience of slavery was covered in detail with vivid firsthand depictions and commentary, and a chapter titled "California in Wartime" that included two full pages on the World War II internment of Japanese Americans. "You can't write the history of every ethnic group in California," he later told an interviewer, "you certainly can't do it for the entire country."

Today's school-age children are members of the most culturally diverse student population in U.S. history. The nation guarantees that they will have access to a public school education regardless of their race, religion, or ethnicity, but in a multicultural society, there are many different views about what they need to know and how they should be taught. Decisions about education—from what to include in new textbooks to how to teach children who speak limited English—often result in controversy because so much is at stake. Education helps to shape a national identity, the sense of com.....

Deciding what to teach

In a culturally diverse society, deciding what to include in a history textbook or curriculum (the content and skills covered in a unit of study) is often a diffic.....

The melting pot approach

Yet for the first half of the twentieth century, most U.S. textbooks and history courses would have praised Columbus's "discovery" of the New World and celebrate.....

Multiculturalism and education

Some educators suggest that the content of the curriculum should reflect America's diversity. The term multiculturalism has also come to refer to an.....

Does multiculturalism distort American history"

The multiculturalist approach has come under attack in recent years for distorting American history and culture. Students in a multicultur.....

Bilingual education

As American society becomes more culturally diverse, there is growing debate not only over curriculum content, but how to teach it. Many recent immigrants arrive in t.....

Preventing hate and prejudice

Some educators stress that the public schools must ensure not only that students of diverse languages and cultural backgrounds receive a quality education, .....

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Chapter 5: Media and Popular Culture in a Multicultural Society

THE LEAD ACTORS of the television show The Broth- ers Garcia are gathered around one of the show's main sets, the kitchen table of a suburban home in San Antonio, Texas, discussing the events of the day. In the show, mother Sonia Garcia is a beautician. Father Ray Garcia is a history professor. The four Garcia children argue, dream about becoming astronauts, fall in love, and sometimes get grounded. But unlike other television families, the Garcias are also devoutly Catholic, keep salsa on the breakfast table, and watch telenovelas, or Mexican soap operas, on Spanish-language television. The Brothers Garcia, which premiered on the Nickelodeon cable channel in the summer of 2000, is the first American television sitcom to profile a middle-class Latino family. It has proven popular with young viewers from a wide range of cultural backgrounds. Yet executives of all the major television networks turned down the idea for The Brothers Garcia. They told the show's creator that mainstream viewers were not ready to accept a sitcom about Latino family life.

America's media and popular culture have a mixed record when it comes to portraying the nation's increasingly multicultural population. On the one hand, racial barriers have been broken down and America's diversity has been reflected as never before; on the other hand, harmful or outdated stereotypes have been promoted. "The media and pop culture," says author Farai Chideya, "have such a tremendous power in our society because we use them to tell us what the rest of the society is like, and how we should react to it." For many Americans, exposure to people of other races and ethnic backgrounds is mainly through media and entertainment. That is why popular culture images—from rap stars to sitcom characters to the new multicultural Barbies and GI Joes—can both change attitudes and reinforce the stereotypes of the past.
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Diverse casting

In recent years, some movies and television programs have helped to break down racial and ethnic stereotypes by casting minority actors in prominent roles that would have once been reserved for whites. African American actors, and to a lesser extent other minorities, play judges, surgeons, lawyers, police detectives, and even fantasy roles such as angels on many dramatic series. Today, few people are surprised to see a black emergency room doctor or judge on a TV drama. Yet only twenty years ago, African American actors who landed parts in major series were often typecast as villains or failures, or limited to situation comedies with all-black casts. Diverse casting, without regard to race, was practically unthinkable in America.

Hollywood movies have also recently begun to feature a rising number of black actors in starring roles. For years, African Americans were cast as stereotypical characters such as villains or sidekicks, but now they often play role.....

Reinforcing stereotypes

Yet even as African Americans land high-profile parts in some movies and television shows, racial minorities are still often subject to stereotypes and negative p.....

Music that crosses racial and ethnic boundaries

In the music industry, racial and ethnic barriers have begun to fall faster than in movies and television. Indeed, much of today's popular.....

Sports in multicultural America

While African American recording artists have redefined the mainstream in popular music, nonwhite athletes have changed the face of American sports. Afric.....

Racist attitudes in sports

Despite these gains, obstacles for minorities in the sports world remain on and off the field. Even in sports that are dominated by nonwhite players, team coac.....

Advertising in multicultural America

Advertisers too have increasingly realized the buying power and influence of America's diverse racial and ethnic groups. They have targeted these gro.....

Youth at the forefront of cultural change

Advertisers are most likely to project an inclusive, multicultural image as they try to market products that appeal to young Americans. This is .....

Does popular culture change attitudes"

While American youths may be willing to embrace African American rap artists or Latino sports heroes, these changes do not necessarily reflect a gr.....

Organizations to Contact

American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
125 Broad St., 18th Floor
New York, NY 10004
www.aclu.org

The ACLU is a national organization that works to actively promote and defend the liberties and civil rights of all Americans.
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American Immigration Law Foundation (AILF)
918 F St., 6th Floor
Washington, DC 20004
(202) 742-5600
www.ailf.org

AILF is a pro-immigration organization that works to increase public understanding of immigration policies and promote fairness under the law for immigrant groups.

Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services
425 I St. NW
Washington, DC 20536
(202) 514-2837
http://uscis.gov

The Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services provides immigration services and processes immigrant visas and citizenship applications.

The Pluralism Project
Harvard University
201 Vanserg Hall 25 Francis Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02138
(617) 496-2481
www.fas.harvard.edu/~pluralism

The Pluralism Project studies and documents America's growing religious diversity. The Web site includes images of immigrant religious communities across the United States and provides access to the project's publications. A teacher's resource section also provides information and links for students.
For Further Reading

Books

Farai Chideya, The Color of Our Future. New York: William Morrow, 1999. Explores the impact of America's demographic changes on the nation's future. The author recounts her experiences as she travels across the country to profile young people and their attitudes about race.
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Ellis Cose, Color-Blind: Seeing Beyond Race in a RaceObsessed World. New York: Harper Perennial, 1997. An African American Newsweek columnist explores Americans' perceptions of race and controversial issues such as affirmative action.

Pearl Fuyo Gaskins, What Are You? Voices of Mixed Race Young People. New York: Henry Holt, 1999. Interviews with multiracial young people from diverse backgrounds about their personal experiences. Also includes poetry, personal writings, and a list of multimedia resources for those wishing to explore the topic further.

Jenna Weissman Joselit, Immigration and American Religion. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2001. A historical overview of immigrant religions for young adult readers, with chapters devoted to Christianity, Judaism, and Asian religions.

Ronald Takaki, Strangers at the Gates Again: Asian

American Immigration After 1965. New York: Chelsea House, 1995. Takaki is a proponent of multiculturalism who has written extensively about Asian American history. In this book for young adult readers, he recounts the experiences of the latest wave of immigrants from Asia.

Mary E. Williams, ed., Interracial America: Opposing Viewpoints. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2001. Designed for young adult readers, this is a collection of articles and commentaries representing different sides of controversial issues such as racial identity, immigration, affirmative action, and interracial marriage.

Web Sites

City Year (www.cityyear.org). City Year is a non-profit organization that works to unite young people of diverse backgrounds in volunteer service to their communities. The Web site describes the group's mission and programs, and how to become involved.

Facing History and Ourselves (www.facinghistory.org). This Web site includes readings, Web links, and student projects on civil rights and overcoming prejudice.

The New Americans (www.pbs.org/newamericans). The Web site is designed to accompany a public television (PBS) series that profiles new immigrants to America. It includes immigrant stories, background information, and a link to a sample citizenship test.

U.S. Census Bureau (www.census.gov). The Census Bureau's extensive Web site includes Gateway to Census 2000, with articles, charts, maps, and sample surveys that break down the U.S.....