Multiculturalism Essay

353 Words2 Pages
Does multiculturalism strengthen or weaken America's identity? Explain why and provide some specific examples to support your answer. I believe multiculturalism strengthens America’s identity because it gives people the opportunity to explore themselves with no restrictions on how or who we pray to, work for, and interact with. Multiculturalism gains significance in the United States, by defending individual rights, through things like the "Bill of Rights," our Constitution makes it essential that we respect the civil liberties of all people in the United States, hence also of our cultural minorities. Multiculturalism isn’t the total of various ethnocentric groups, where each one of amalgamates around its specific island of cultural standards, instead it’s a closely intertwined network of cultural cores that every citizen feels welcome to learn from. Multiple group membership may be seen as the best possible manifestation of the freedom in American society to contour one's own individuality, or one's purpose. Alternatively, an American native may decide to live as a "cultural eclectic," by which I mean partake in the morals of a assortment of other cultures, which may nothing like the ethnic group that individual may be born from, and not just "ethnic," but political, educational in nature, religious, or of another type. A Greek-American can join an African-American cultural focus. Such person may become culturally "adapted" to at least some of the cultures values in the process. An African-American can join a Greek-American cultural center, and likewise become acculturated in those cultures values as well. A Philippine-American may adapt to Irish-American values through learning about Irish-Americans, exercise their traditional customs, or some Irish-American connotations, therefore in effect "becoming" Irish-American. The reverse is also true regarding

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