Multiculturalism in America

The phenonmena of multiculturalism is a strange one. How it has come about, why many feel the need to return to the cultural heritage of their forefathers is a subject of some interest for those looking for long term solutions and a rational approach to politics awareness.

To understand the phenonmena we must first revisit the main premise of Toynbee's theory, challenge and response. As a new civilization grows it must face many challenges. It was no different as the European settlers of North America expanded across the continent. Not all the challenges were physical. The task of opening up the land, wresting it from the original inhabitants and other European claimants, and the migration of settlers into the new lands required many individual and group sacrifices. None of that was possible though without the emotional commitment, the common interest of a nation as a whole.

It must be understood that multiculturalism is in many ways a celebration of the cultural heritage of the individual. It is not only that though. It is, I believe, an attempt to fill a void. During the great migrations from Europe it was a common sentiment among those already settled in the New World, and among those just arriving, that the immigrant would be expected to become an 'American'. Much of the cultural heritage of those immigrants was lost to their own children. Often the original settlers continued speaking their native tongues. Their children, educated in American schools, were often bilingual. The 'understanding' that all would adopt American culture and language often resulted, as it did in my grandparents' home when my mother was a child, in a ban on speaking the native language in the homes of the second generation. They were to become American. All that was of the old world was 'verboten'.

Many of the new arrivals moved into cultural enclaves both in the big cities and along the expanding boundry of the nation. Many German and other northern and western Europeans settled in the Ohio valley. Many of their descendants moved west to settle in Iowa and the regions around the western Great Lakes. Their descendants, in turn, moved across the plains. They were then of the new world though. There was no longer a need to band together with those of a like cultural heritage.

The story of the expansion to the west is not as simple one. Certainly not as simple as explained here. There can be no doubt though of the intent of those who came to become a part of the new nation. It is difficult for those of us who live in a more 'enightened' age to believe a people would give up all that they had been, or that which their parents had been, to become something else. It is hard to believe and impossible to understand for anyone who did not live through the time. It cannot be denied though that thousands, tens of thousands did just that. Why?

I have often wondered just what the definition of 'American' was to those brave and often desperate people. We know from what we were taught in school that they fled political and religious persecution in the homelands. I have no reason to disbelieve that is the truth. No doubt there were many other motivating factors. Perhaps as many as there were people eager to take the risk of crossing the ocean. Many would have looked to the New World as an opportunity for personal wealth, new frontiers, flight from family strife. Whatever the reason the new nation was in truth the land of opportunity.

The act of becoming American was a commitment to the future. It was a rejection of the past. That meant also that it was a rejection of the cultural background each of the immigrants had known. The rejection not just the oppresion or the poverty that spurred their flight in the first place. They also turned their backs on the tales told to them during their childhoods. The whole mythology that defined them and their relationship to the world was gone. Their history, the bravery of their forebears, the tales of creation of their old nations, all gone.

Some of that cannot be easily left behind. Much of the folklore of the old world made its way into the new. It was quite easy for it to do so. There was nothing here to displace. The people who settled this country were in many ways given a task that was nearly impossible to fulfill, at least in the two hundred years they've been at it so far. In addition to physically conquering the continent they would have to create a new cultural identity. It was, and still is, a daunting task.

We have made few worthy strides. Tales of Pecos Pete, Paul Bunyan, and the like seem to be the limit of the mythology of our new selves. Even the religion of our forefathers has fallen on hard times. How many of those who attend church once a week violate its most basic tenets repeatedly during the other six days? Culture is more than the actions that make up our daily lives. It is more than what technological society as we practice it can provide. It is more than a simple quest for material wealth. It is more than the entertainment, and the superficial concern for the poor and the like, provided by television.

Culture, very simply, is the creation of what we believe. We believed in the land of opportunity, in freedom and those believes were what, in part, fueled the expansion across the continent. A belief system of liberty and opportunity was the tool we used to meet the challenge of conquering a new world. It is the belief system that still drives us.

It has been many years since we could say that we have won that first challenge. Our response was sufficient to the task. We use it still in our efforts to bring the wealth and power of technology to others around the world. More importantly, it is still the standard we carry as we bring democracy to those who have not yet tasted the freedom it provides.

The belief in freedom still serves us well as a nation. That is not to say that it is never abused. Just as early Christian missionaries and crusaders commited many atrocities in their attempts to bring their beliefs to the 'heathen' Muslims or some other 'ignorant' peoples, we run the risk of doing the same in our efforts to bring the standard of liberty and prosperity to those 'less fortunate' and 'the oppressed'.

At the time of this writing we are attempting to liberate the oppressed of Iraq. The need for war has been touted as a preemptive strike against a regime capable of producing and furnishing weapons of mass destruction. The war was also to be an act of liberation. Proof that the government of Iraq had, distributed, or planned to use such weapons has been slow in coming. Proof that the Iraqi people hungered for liberation is no more evident.

What is increasingly clear two weeks into the war is that many Iraqis seem determined to sacrifice themselves for their leader. Many of the nations in the region are in turmoil over what they view as nothing short of invasion by American 'imperialists'. Remember, it is not necessarily the facts that determine the future. It is belief that is the driving factor. Many of us know people who don't let the facts get in the way of what they believe. Nations and their people as a whole are subject to the same illusions. What we do creates new beliefs, and those new beliefs drive what we do.

It may be that Saddam Hussein was a major player in global terrorism. When the Saddam's regime is removed it may be that many of the Iraqi people will welcome the presense of American troops, and the promise they represent. Much will be determined by the beliefs we create when the war is over.

There are indications that we have failed to provide sufficient evidence of the need for liberation. The demonstrations around the world, and the failure of many major players in planetary politics support that notion. Such a failure has left us in a whole that will be difficult to climb out of when we have occupied Iraq.

This conflict, and our failure to prove the need to most of the rest of the planet's population, is in many ways reflective of what has happened in America itself. It is not whether we or others believe in the promise of democracy. It is whether democracy and the exportation of technology with the promise is the proper response to what ails us and the planet as a whole.

Many in America have come to question the wisdom of such an approach. Many in America have come to question the value of democracy and capitalism as a whole belief system. Whether it is a sense of guilt in a increasingly eco-sensitive population or a lack of something more in the dominant belief system that drove this nation during its expansion is difficult to say. It is probably a combination of those and others. What is certain is that the tales of Paul Bunyon and the suppression of the American Native population are too thin, and too tasteless, a gruel to sustain many people. They must turn to something else.

The return to the cultural heritage of our ancestors is, I believe, an act of desperation. Others who feel the same lack of connectedness with their world have turned to other places for remedy. Some have become activists for many causes. Some have gone to the extreme and given themselves to eco-terrorism and the like. Most have found their solace in the beliefs of their forefathers for the simple reason that the nation they inhabit no longer provides them with what they need, a coherent system of beliefs needed to understand and deal with the world around them.

It must be understood that I am not condemning those who have taken such courses in their lives. To do so would be to condemn human nature. Multiculturalism is a response, a healthy response, to a need that has gone unfulfilled for decades at least. If anything is true, it is that I envy those who have taken that leap. My cultural heritage was lost to me generations ago. All that remains is a meaningless geneology of names and incidents that have little emotional or instructive value. No other has risen to fill the void.

If these United States are to remain in the forefront of Mankind's advance into the future we must recognize that freedom and prosperity are little more than pieces of paper on which we write our own history. Many others have done well on sheets of different color and size. Many acts that deserve our honor have been written on the vellum of benevolent monarchy, or theocracy, or even dictatorship. It is the belief that is written there that matters and if we are to remain preeminent or even a major player in gobal progress we must create more than the paper.