Cultural Pluralism the American Territory

Cultural Pluralism

The American territory is well-known for its cultural pluralism. The outstanding cultural diversity and ethnic pluralism in the United States call for cultural awareness and special social education of the community members, in order to avoid important problems, such as racism and discrimination. The basis of the modern democratic society requires more than tolerance towards the different racial, ethnic or social categories. The contemporary cultural and ethnic studies aim at a globalization based on the cultural awareness of each individual in society. The main premises of cultural awareness are that the individuals should have knowledge of the different traditions, customs and ideologies specific to each culture. It is essential for the proper functioning of any social environment that the other culture, which are not part of what is usually called the mainstream white civilization, should not be considered as "minorities" also in terms of culture, simply because they have small populations on a certain territory.

In the United States, approximately 75% of the total population is non-Hispanic White, while the rest is formed by different cultural groups, such as the African-Americans, the Asians, the Latinos and the Native Americans:

Almost 75% of the U.S. population identifies as non-Hispanic White (U.S. Census Bureau, 2000), while about 12.3% is African-American, 12.5% is Latino/Hispanic, 3.6% is Asian, 0.9% is Native American or Alaskan Natives, and 0.1% is Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islanders."("Diversity and Citizenship," 107)

Some of the regions in the United States have a predominant Latino or African-American population, such as Los Angeles and Brownsville in Texas, where the Hispanic population is of over 80% or Alabama and Detroit, where the black population is of almost 90% of the whole. ("Diversity and Citizenship," 105) These statistics point to the importance of cultural diversity in the United States. Also, besides the numbers, the cultural contributions of these minority groups to the overall history of America cannot be neglected. As Ignatiev emphasizes, the Afro-Americans in the United States, as well as the other minority groups can not be regarded as exceptions to the mainstream culture or as exotic people, but as an integral part of the American history:

In looking at the history of Afro-Americans in this country, one must look at it not as if this is some exotic group of interesting people in a foreign country about whom we ought to learn a little bit more, but rather understand that the history of Black folk in the United States is central to the history of Americans as a whole. That applies to the shaping of the American national identity, to the particular forms that the American republic takes, to the meaning of citizenship, to the meaning of westward movement, to the meaning of labor movement, of reform, of every aspect of American society."("Diversity and Citizenship," 104)

The Afro-Americans, the Hispanics and the Native Americans have played an essential role in the shaping of the American culture. Nevertheless, in the early United States, they were not considered as citizens of the country. The right to vote or to hold public offices was given exclusively to the white male, thus basing citizenship on such criteria as race, ethnicity and gender. Although this has changed over time, and the minority groups have equal rights, the cultural awareness of the society is still insufficient. As such, a great emphasis has been laid in the past decades on the promotion of cultural studies and on finding a way to integrate multicultural education in the general curriculum of schools. One of the best-known textbooks of multicultural education is Teaching Strategies for Ethnic Studies by James a. Banks. In his study, Banks emphasizes the need for a new educational curriculum or at least for its adjustment, so as to direct the students toward a better apprehension of the cultural plurality in their environment. This is not supposed to be a mere add-on to the general academic preparation, but actually an essential part of its basic structure. Multicultural education has the purpose of helping students to understand the different cultures that are part of the same environment they live in. It is obvious that although all the citizens of a country may be homogenized into the whole of the population by taking part in the same laws and in the same patterns of living, the major cultural differences help to individualize them and so point to the importance of cultural awareness. Banks presents in his book the main methods that can be used by the teachers and instructors in schools to ensure that their educational system is a multicultural one. He also stresses that multicultural education does not address merely the minorities, and that everyone should participate in it. As Banks has emphasized in his previous works as well, the multicultural education can be done in four ways or approaches, which range from a more superficial to a deeper understanding of difference. Thus, the first approach is "the contributions approach," which consists of the introduction in the curriculum of discrete cultural elements, such as very important heroes or holidays or traditions specific to a certain culture. The next approach with be the additive one, where the teacher gradually includes cultural add-ons to the general curriculum, increasing the understanding of the different cultures. The transformation approach which follows can be seen as a complete renewal of the initial academic material, so as to be directly concerned with multicultural issues. The most radical approach is the social action one, in which the cultural education goes from passive understanding to social activism. Thus, the outline of these approaches stress the importance of including the cultural plurality problems in the educational curriculum to make sure that multiculturalism is part of the formation of each individual. As Banks points out, the modern democratic society requires that the students have multicultural skills so as to promote progress and diversity:

To fully participate in our democratic society, these students and all students need the skills a multicultural education can give them to understand others and to thrive in a rapidly changing, diverse world."("Teaching Strategies," 37)

Thus, according to Banks multicultural education is the first necessary step to level the faulty dialogue between the different ethnicities that live on a common territory. In the culturally plural environment of the United States it is important to include cultural awareness into the basic formation of the individual, so as to ensure that he or she can act as the members of a democratic community:

Consequently, an important goal of citizenship education in a democratic multicultural society is to help students acquire the knowledge, attitudes, and skills needed to make reflective decisions and to take actions to make their nation-states more democratic and just."("Diversity and Citizenship," 4)

The present theories related to multiculturalism emphasize the necessity of going beyond mere tolerance to otherness, and, most importantly, of avoiding assimilation. Besides discrimination and racism assimilation of the Afro- Americans or the Hispanics within the white culture has greatly contributed to the negative consequences that the education has had on the minority groups. As Banks explains, through assimilation, an individual who belongs to a minority group becomes alienated from both the mainstream culture and from his or her own culture:

Assimilationist approaches to citizenship education often used in nation-states in the past alienated students from their home and community cultures and failed to recognize that cultural citizenship was an essential part of the self-determination of many students from various ethnic, racial, and language groups.

One outcome of assimilationist approaches was to make students of color experience marginality in both their community cultures and in the mainstream culture of society. When they became alienated from their home and community cultures, institutionalized racism prevented most students of color from attaining full structural integration into the mainstream society. Consequently, they were full participants in neither their cultural communities nor within the dominant society."("Diversity and Citizenship," 5)

Therefore, Banks points to the importance of the preparation of the individual so as to be a part of the global community as well, and not only of his own culture. As such, there is a new emphasis on difference and diversity, which are extremely important in the multicultural world in which we live in. This is why the gradual introduction of ethnic elements into the school curriculum is considered to be a positive step towards democracy, as it aims at the education of a global citizen rather than of an American one. For example, it should be noticed that the homogenizing of identity can sometimes lead to misunderstanding of a certain culture and to discrimination. In the case of the group generally called "the Latinos" or "the Hispanics" it can be seen that the general term used to delimit it is too fuzzy, as it unites many minority groups in the United States, such as the Mexicans, the Puerto Ricans, the Cubans or the Spaniards under one general term. The criterion used for this homogenization is simply the use of the same language (Spanish) by all these people. As Mitchell points out however, this criterion can overlook the major differences between the cultures that form the Hispanic group, and the multicultural curriculum should ensure the recognition of these basic differences. (Mitchell, 102)

However, this emphasis on difference that is characteristic of the contemporary ethnic studies is not to be taken as a form of absolute belonging or encapsulation of an individual in a certain culture. Multicultural education aims at teaching the differences between cultures and at equipping the individual with the necessary skills for the culturally plural environment. This means that the student learns to understand his own culture and the other cultures, but at the same time to detach himself from the unique identification with a nation or an ethnic identity:

Individuals are capable of having multiple identifications and attachments, including attachments to their cultural community, their nation, and to 'the worldwide community of human beings' (Nussbaum, 2002, p. 4). Gutmann (2002) contends, however, that democratic education should help students to develop their primary moral allegiance to justice -- not to any human community. She writes, 'Doing what is right cannot be reduced to loyalty to, or identification with, any existing group of human beings.'"("Diversity and Citizenship," 6)

The detachment from national identity means actually the implication in the overall, global context. As James Banks remarks, this is can help reduce the risk of terrorism and other such actions that are associated with strong religious or ethnic identification with a certain group.

In the United States, the ethnic minority groups such as the Afro-Americans, the Hispanics and the Native Americans have suffered from discrimination for a long time, in spite of the fact that they are a living part of the history. The Afro-Americans for example are present in the American history since the time of Columbus, through Diego el Negro who sailed with Columbus on his voyage to the continent (Mitchell, 4) Besides the well-known historical discrimination against these groups, many of the cultural critics comment on the poor conditions of life in which they live at present as well. As Andreas Torres shows, the Latinos and African-Americans in New York are still part of the proletariat class in their majority. This proves that the integration of these groups in society has failed to a great extent. The language barriers and the cultural ones are the most probable reason for the conditions in which the minority groups are likely to live in the United States:

To a degree that cannot fail to startle anyone who encounters the reality for the first time, the overwhelming portion of both groups constitutes a submerged, exploited, and very possibly permanent proletariat. The marked debility of their position relative to the citywide standard is clearly reflected in several indicators. Patterns of labor force participation, unemployment rates, and median family incomes indicate that the gaps between native minorities and whites have persisted for decades."(Torres, 61)

The problems that the minorities face on the territory of the United States are related, if not to discrimination, to the lack of cultural dialogue. This is why the proposition for a multicultural education that would prepare the individual beforehand for the multiethnic context is imperative. James Banks shows that the main teaching strategies that could help integrating the cultural backgrounds in the academic curriculum are crucial to the modern democratic society. As he points out, the multicultural education is an education for freedom, that is, an education that promotes the construction of democracy. The skills and strategies that can ensure optimal cultural dialogue are multiple.

Thus, in the second chapter of Teaching Strategies for Ethnic Studies, Banks describes the way in which the formulation of precise concepts can be extremely useful in articulating and understanding cultural facts and phenomena. His recommendation is for example that a comparative ethnic studies class should require the students to analyze some of the attributes of one or another ethnic group that lives on the territory of a certain nation, such as Filipino Americans, British Pakistanis and so on. The criteria for analysis should be origin, culture, assimilation, economic status, education, power and ethnic revitalization. (Banks, 89) This will allow a more effective understanding of the way in which the cultures interact in binary formulas on the territory of different states, and thus show the pattern of influences that one civilization is likely to have on another.

Therefore, multiculturalism should be analyzed according to the significance of the pattern of influences as well. Conceptualizing is crucial for the understanding of the meaning of these cultural facts. Instead of working with fuzzy notions, the true understanding of cultural diversity presupposes a careful analysis of the abstract concepts as well. The importance of the school curriculum is therefore very great, as it can help achieve the great step to a democratic and balanced society: