Multiculturalism and Assimilation Essay

Migration dates back to many years ago, and due to this, many countries have either changed or remained unchanged. How have these individuals adapted to the new society? How have they changed the new country? There are two approaches that these individuals may choose to follow: assimilation or multiculturalism.
What is migration? Migration denotes any movement from one place to another, in this case, from one country to another. People who migrate are known as migrants, or more specifically, emigrants, immigrants or settlers. The reasons that migration occurs can be categorized into push and pull factors. These factors are political, economic, environmental and cultural based. Some push factors include those that force people to migrate such as few job opportunities, poor medical conditions, natural disasters etc. Pull factors are those that attract people to migrate such as better living conditions, education, more job opportunities etc. Migration has many effects such as changes in population, economic results, and especially increasing mixture of cultures from different regions around the world.
Migration has had a huge impact on Australia in particular, since the Gold Rush; many people arrived from all over the world. From the large amounts of people from other countries, specifically the large amount of Chinese, the ‘White Australia Policy’ became effective and the Chinese and other non-British/English migrants were banned from migrating to Australia. Then from the 1950’s, Australia decided to change this policy and become a multicultural society.
Multiculturalism is where there is a diversity of cultures, and migrants choose to keep their own traditions. The multicultural approach attempts to create unity for the diversity of cultures to share their heritage and also be treated with equality. Australia is a multicultural society which allows immigrants to demonstrate their practices, but also must also adhere to Australian customs. Asians have migrated...