Multiculturalism and American identity: relationship and issues

Multicultural Perspective in America

The answer to why Americans are welcoming of other cultures in a way that is perhaps not observable in other countries, is that Americans are a people whom since the beginning of their brief history as a country, are always seeking to connect to their ancestral roots. When America broke from its European father, King James VI, the members of the thirteen colonies were rejecting the economic relationship between the U.S. And the colonies, not their European roots (Howard, Con, Doyle, David, and Dudley, Owen, 1980, 16). In the years following the Revolutionary War, Americans were focused on the hardships of surviving and expanding in a hostile land. There was little time or means by which to document the roots of the colonists beyond the first few generations of Americans following the Revolutionary War. As settlers and explorers and colonizers made their way from the east coast westward, they carried with them the necessities of life: clothing, tools for making a home. Any items of emotional attachment were luxury items, and had to be expendable or the trip could not begin, or, in some cases, could not see the destination as planned. At some point along the way from settling the east coast, moving westward, many Americans lost their roots, and today are scrambling to reconnect to their roots.

Genealogy web sites are amongst some of the busiest sites on the internet. People are consumed with trying to trace their histories and origins. For this reason, Americans as a whole seem to be more accepting and open to the multicultural melting pot that is America today.

Today there is lively and confused contention about national identity, racial identity, sexual identity, and sundry other identities that are frequently expressed in "identity politics." In this confusion the question of who we are as Americans runs up against the claim that there is no American identity but only a hodgepodge of identities in both complementary and competition. There is, it is said, no American culture but only a mosaic of subcultures in which individuals elect to be who they want to be and therefore most truly are (Neuhaus, John, 2007, 39)."

When John F. Kennedy was elected president, there was a national elation, first, because Kennedy was the first Irish-American president, and, second, because he was Catholic. Kennedy was the first Irish-American president, and representative of a large immigrant population whom until that point in time, felt largely disconnected from their place in America, even though their history of immigration was solidly meshed in the American fabric. When Kennedy was elected, there was the sense of connection to America as the homeland for generations of Americans whose roots were Ireland, but whose identity had seemed to somehow get lost in the hodge-podge of American identity.

In general, the American Irish are more liberal than their kindred in Ireland. American pluralism and the increasing sophistication and intellectualism of the Catholic laity have restrained the authoritarianism and dogmatism of the hierarchy. Irish-Americans seem to be more determined to maintain a separation of church and state than the Irish in Ireland. In his 1960 address to Protestant clergymen in Houston, Texas, John F. Kennedy spoke for most Irish-Americans when he said:

believe in an America where the separation of Church and State is absolute -- where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be a Catholic) how to act.... If my church attempted to influence me in a way which was improper or which affected adversely my responsibilities as a public servant, sworn to uphold the Constitution, then I would reply to them that this was an improper action on their part, that it was one to which I could not subscribe, that I was opposed to it, and that it would be an unfortunate breach -- an interference with the American political system. I am confident there would be no such interference (Howard, Doyle, et al., 84).'"

The recent election of Barack H. Obama as the first black president of the United States, has enfranchised the population of black Americans whose identity was stolen when their ancestors were traded to the Americas as slaves. Their road has been a long one of civil rights, and a goal to establish their rights as Americans. Americans saw that goal come to fruition in January, 2009, when Obama was sworn in as president.