Say “NO” to Multiculturalism?

It is very interesting to see various opinions in terms of multiculturalism. Previously, I posted an entry on Multicultural Education in the United States. It is very important to have multicultural education because the number of immigrants has been rapidly increasing. In classrooms, you will see students from other parts of the world, such as Asia, Africa, and Europe in addition to those who are originally from America. This has made the modern classroom very diverse. Some may come from countries where they practice similar customs and cultures with those of America. However, there are many things, such as how they think and what they believe, varying from country to country. Some students may become confused with other student’s attitudes, postures, or their way of speaking. That’s why, in order to understand the differences in cultures and accepting it, I believe that multicultural education is essential.

One of the most shocking ideas I came across while reading an assigned article for a class was that there are people who are against multiculturalism. I will not say that this way of thinking is wrong; I just have never thought in this manner myself. America has received a lot of people from all over the world and that number only continues to increase. This means there have been more diverse cultures coming into America. I have been to a Mexican residential area, shopped at a Korean supermarket, and enjoyed a Thai and Ethiopian restaurant, while never leaving the city of Nashville. The people who are against Multiculturalism seem afraid to lose their own culture, or, I should say, fear being merged or taken over. On the other hand, I understand that it shows cultural their pride as an America. I do have a lot pride as a Japanese citizen as well and would like to protect the traditional culture and customs of Japan. Each of us love our country as our own, do we not? But we need to think about how society is beginning to change. Our world has been getting smaller and easier to access when it comes to different cultures. For economically big countries like America, a lot of people come not only to visit, but also to live there. As one of the leaders in the world, America needs to show their leadership on multiculturalism. They can exclude those people from their country, but since there already have a lot of people from outside of America, they need to consider accepting them.

However, in a classroom setting, I can understand that some people are concerned about distinguishing those students who have different backgrounds because of multicultural education. It enables teachers to expose students to different values and provides them opportunities to get to know what they haven’t seen before. Through multicultural education, students can learn how to respect people, cultures, and values of other countries. Especially in America, everybody has different origins of birth. Their parents may come from Europe, or Asia, and their grandparents might come from Africa. We cannot tell what they are based off of their appearance alone. There are differences in them even though they look similar (like same race). Even when comparing Japanese people, there are big differences in appearance and characteristics. Why should we not compare people who are different than us? It becomes problematic if you just compare and criticize each other. But, if you can measure the value of the differences and try to accept them, it is worth giving it a try.