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Cultural assimilation: American pluralism permitted the existence in the American culture of two major trends both playing a very significant role called assimilation and multiculturalism. Cultural assimilation is an intense process of consistent integration when members of an ethno-cultural group, typically immigrants, or other minority groups, are “absorbed” into an established, generally larger community. This presumes a loss of all or many characteristics which make the newcomers different. America is widely known as a “melting pot” in which immigrant groups used to assimilate. The term “melting pot” referred to the idea that immigrants were expected and encouraged to integrate themselves into the general American culture; and the societies formed by immigrant cultures, religions, and ethnic groups were to produce new hybrid social and cultural forms. Fig.9. American “melting pot”  Popular use of the melting-pot metaphor was derived from Israel Zangwill’s play “The Melting Pot,” which was first performed in Washington, D.C. in 1908, in which one character declares: “America is God's Crucible, the great Melting-Pot where all the races of Europe are melting and reforming! Here you stand in your 50 groups with your 50 languages and histories, but you won’t be like that for long, brothers. For these are the fires of God you’ve come to – these are the fires of God… A fig for your feuds (deadly enemies) and vendettas! Germans and Frenchmen, Irishmen and Englishmen, Jews and Russians — into the Crucible with you all! God is making the American…He will be the fusion of all races, the coming superman.” But Zangwill’s sentiments were not new ones. As far back as the end of the 18th century one French immigrant and keen observer of American life, described his new compatriots as: “…a mixture of English, Scotch, Irish, French, Dutch, Germans, and Swedes. What, then, is the American, this new man? He is neither a European nor the descendant of a European; hence that strange mixture of blood, which you will find in no other country. I could point out to you a family whose grandfather was an Englishman, whose wife was a Dutch, whose son married a French woman, and whose present four sons have now four wives of different nations. He is an American… leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners.” Traditionally, the phenomenon of assimilation has been seen as a relentless economic progression. Hard working new-arrivals struggled along with a new language and at low paying jobs in order for their sons and daughters to climb the economic ladder, each generation advancing a rung. But, in the current immigration wave something markedly different is happening in the middle of the great American “melting pot.” The U.S. demographics are changing in profound and unprecedented ways, and as immigrant populations reach a critical mass in many communities, it is no longer the melting pot that is transforming them, but they (the immigrant populations) are transforming the American society. So, the melting pot is no longer an article of faith in the American self-image. Multiculturalism: The idea of multiculturalism is now put forward as an alternative to assimilation. Walt Whitman, the national poet, wrote of his nation. “I am large,” “I contain multitudes.” In 1918, the public intellectual Randolph Bourne called for a “transnational America.” The original English colonists, Bourne argued, “did not come to be assimilated in an American melting pot. They came to get freedom to live as they wanted to make their fortune in a new land. Later immigrants, he continued, did not melt down into some kind of “tasteless, colorless” homogeneous Americanism but rather added their distinct contributions to the greater whole.” Today’s ideologies of multiculturalism and diversity deny the existence of a common culture in the U.S.; they denounce the assimilation, and promote the primacy of racial, ethnic, and other sub-national cultural identities and groupings. That’s why the old “melting pot” metaphor is giving way to new metaphors such as “salad bowl” or, as it is known in Canada, “cultural mosaic,” i.e. mixtures of various ingredients that keep their individual characteristics, or “diversity salad.” The idea is that bits of lettuce, celery, carrot, and other ingredients retain all their individual flavor and color, yet are combined into an appetizing dish. This notion is attractive and simplistic. It implies that all the ethnicities that make up the U.S.A. should retain their national features and originality. Whichever theory is right, the democracy of the U.S. lets both the multicultural and melting-pot approaches to be equally represented and exercised in immigrant communities. The balance between the melting pot and transnational ideals varies with time and circumstance, with neither model achieving a complete dominance. Americans have internationalized an American self-portrait that spans a spectrum of races, creeds, and colors. Let’s consider the popular motion pictures depicting American troops in action during the Second World War. It became a Hollywood cliché that every platoon included a farm boy from Iowa, a Brooklyn Jew, a Polish millworker from Chicago, an Appalachian woodsman, and other diverse examples of mid-20th century American manhood. They strain at first to overcome their differences, but by the film’s end all have bonded — as Americans. Real life can be more complicated, because, say, the African-American soldier could serve in a segregated unit. Regardless such facts, however, these films depicted an American identity that Americans believed in — or wanted to. Now the time has come to mention the phenomenon of hyphenated Americanism. The term hyphenated American is an epithet from the late 19th century to refer to Americans who consider themselves of a distinct cultural origin other than the U.S., and who claim to hold loyalty to both. The first term typically indicates a region of origin or ancestry, which is generally (but not always) paired with “American” by a hyphen, such as African-American, Chinese-American, Irish-American, German-American, and Japanese-American. The linguistic construction functionally indicates ancestry, but also may connote a sense that these individuals straddle two worlds — one experience is specific to their unique ethnic identity, while the other is the broader multicultural amalgam that is Americana. Most usage experts recommend dropping the hyphen because it implies to some people dual nationalism and inability to be accepted as truly American. By contrast, other groups have embraced the hyphen arguing that the American identity is compatible with alternative identities, and that the mixture of identities within the U.S. strengthens the nation rather than weakens it. In 1915, President T. Roosevelt opposed the idea of "hyphenated Americanism", saying, “There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. He continued: When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all. ... The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be - to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality, than with the other citizens of the American Republic. .. He concluded: There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American. The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else.” President W. Wilson also regarded those whom he termed “hyphenated Americans” with suspicion, he went further saying, “Any man who carries a hyphen about with him carries a dagger that he is ready to plunge into the vitals of this Republic whenever he gets ready.” But the problem persists. Currently, while some “hyphenated Americans” hold to other countries’ loyalties and draw criticism from some Americans, there are many “hyphenated Americans” who do not define or desire to define themselves as such, but rather are defined as such by other people. The result is that even if these Americans are, in Roosevelt’s words, “American and nothing else,” they still may end up having a different experience, and for that reason may develop shared understandings with others of their type, whether they want that or not. This in itself becomes, ironically, a reason for them to be interested in their “hyphenated” identity. There are nowadays many American immigrants or children of immigrants - a rapidly increasing number of them claim dual citizenship - because they cannot sacrifice half of who they are. Lastly, some Americans do not view hyphenated Americans as having conflicting loyalties because they agree with the “global citizen” concept of caring about all people regardless of nationality, a concept that more people are following in the light of increasing globalization. To sum up, we may say that the U.S. is a pluralistic multicultural society with a unique culture having far more in common than apart. The U.S. is composed of many nationalities, races, religions, and creeds. Through assimilation and transformation into the American society these people, in their turn, are transforming and changing their country and culture. Some of those who had immigrated to America embraced the opportunity to leave old cultures behind and to free themselves from past traditions and loyalties. Others found that the liberties promised under the Bill of Rights allowed for distinctiveness rather than uniformity, and they have taken pride in preserving and celebrating their origins. And American pluralism adds to the richness and strength of the nation’s culture. American culture is primarily known as mass culture: Nowadays, when the U.S. population is mainly centered in large cities, it is exposed to a relatively uniform commercial or mass culture which is defined as a set of cultural values and ideas that arise from common exposure of a population to the same cultural activities, communications media, music and art, etc. Mass culture becomes possible only with modern communications and electronic media. A mass culture is transmitted to individuals, rather than arising from people's daily interactions, and therefore lacks the distinctive content of cultures rooted in community and region. Mass culture produces a homogeneous commercial atmosphere throughout the country. It homogenizes tastes, styles, and points of view among different groups in the U.S. Class and ethnic distinctions in American culture begin to fade; culture becomes more democratic, more uniform and profit-oriented as mass media transmit movies and music to people throughout the country. No wonder, the growing uniformity of mass culture evokes criticism, as it lowers the general standard of taste, because mass media seek to please the largest number of people by appealing to simpler rather than more complex tastes. During the 20th century, mass entertainment extended the reach of American culture, reversing the direction of influence as Europe and the world became consumers of American popular culture. U.S. music is heard all over the world. U.S. movies and television shows can be seen almost anywhere. People all over the world view American television programs, often years after the program’s popularity has declined in the U.S. The U.S. hasbecome a trend setter in many spheres of life. It has become the dominant cultural source for entertainment and popular fashion, from the jeans and T-shirts young people wear to the music groups and rock stars they listen to and the movies they see. So, American entertainment is one of the strongest means by which America influences the world. This influence is often criticized and called cultural imperialism or Americanization. The Americanization of popular taste and habits is not restricted only to entertainment. The growing popularity of hamburgers, fried chicken and other easily prepared “fast food” spread American eating habits all over the world. Blue jeans and T-shirts Americanized the dress of people on every continent. Supermarkets Americanized the everyday experience of shopping for millions and skyscrapers became the solution for many overpopulated cities over the world where a need for more working and living space as well as the cost of land was high. Currently, American values are often portrayed as global or universal ones. This trend is not only cultural but also a political one. By spreading and dissemination its culture all over the world the U.S. is shaping the perception of the country overseas. So, American culture has become a means of brainwashing and indoctrination. Certainly this process of Americanization evokes counterforce. Some countries resent the American cultural juggernaut, they see it as a threat to their unique national culture. The French periodically campaign to rid their language of invading English terms, and the Canadians have placed limits on American publications in Canada. And yet the American talent for making entertainment that appeals to virtually all of humanity is no small gift. In his book The Hollywood Eye, writer and producer John Boorstein defends the movies’ orientation to mass-market tastes in terms that can be applied to other branches of American pop culture: “In their simple-minded, greedy, democratic way Hollywood filmmakers know deep in their gut that they can have it both ways — they can make a film they are terrifically proud of that masses of people will want to see, too. That means tuning out their more rarefied sensibilities and using that part of themselves they share with their parents and their siblings, with Wall Street lawyers and small-town Rotarians and waiters and engineering students, with cops and pacifists and the guys at the car wash and perhaps even second graders and junkies and bigots (fanatics),...and producing the common human currency of joy and sorrow and anger and excitement and loss and pain and love.” Alongside with the trend of spreading American culture all over the world, a reverse tendency may be observed in the U.S.: many Americans exhibit ethnocentric or insular outlooks, with little interest in the culture or political developments of other countries. Americans tend to travel abroad less than citizens of European countries or Japan. Furthermore, comparatively few books from European countries or Japan are translated for sale in the U.S.; and sales of those that are translated tend to be slow. Imported television shows are also rare, except on PBS, although remakes of foreign shows are increasingly common. Imported films are generally less successful than domestic productions. This is emphasized in the American readaptation of such television shows as The Office, Queer as Folk, and Red Dwarf. Popular foreign shows are often rewritten and localized with American actors cast in the place of their foreign counterparts and filmed in American places. By the way, this process of readapting foreign movies and shows is also called Americanization. Finally, the term Americanization can also refer to the process of adapting immigrants to the U.S. way of life in order to become American citizens. The process involves learning American English and adjusting to American culture, customs, and garb or dress. American English as a tool of globalization: By the way, American English is the strongest American cultural export which is conquering the globe. Around 320 million people speak it as their first language and another 250 million or so as their second. A billion people are learning it, about a third of the world’s population is exposed to it, and by 2050, it is reckoned, half the world will be more or less proficient in it. Today, English is adopting a predominantly American touch, not only because of the prestige of the American lifestyle and pop culture, but because the U.S. is in the limelight as a dominant world power, as a globalization leader. The U.S. dominance is cultural, diplomatic and political. It also dictates a model for the English language, thus making American English the dominant language variety. AE is becoming a code of international linguistic transaction, a medium of worldwide linguistic interaction, its intra- and international functions keep increasing with every coming day. In a foreseeable future, the so-called World Englishes will gradually disappear in the sweeping current of the American variety of English. The presence of the American tongue and voice in many situations of daily life creates a far-reaching in depth and extent cultural presence that is difficult to resist. To sum up, the U.S. culture encompasses traditions, ideals, customs, beliefs, values, arts, folklore and innovations developed both domestically and imported via colonization and immigration. Through modern mass media and by means of American English, many American cultural elements, especially popular culture, have been exported across the globe where American culture is both accepted and resented. Princeton professor of politics Robert P. George once pointed out that “it is possible to become a citizen of France…but it’s very difficult, if you’re not already one, to become a Frenchman.” On the other hand, by virtue of committing oneself “to America and to its founding principles,” one can legitimately become “an American in the fullest and most robust sense.” Even though the American society can be broken down into different ethnicities, as a whole Americans are a culture of their own. A very unique bread of all their own, the values, dedication, hard work, and perseverance, love for freedom, and determination to better their lives, makes them American. And even though they all come from something different they all have the pursuit of happiness. Americans define themselves not be their racial, religious or ethnic identities but rather by their common values or the founding principles in which American identity is grounded. Now I’d like to speak about the American value system or these founding principles. At the core of the American value system there are some selected values and beliefs; they unite all Americans and shape their culture. In fact, they are not new, not original; but nowhere in the world they could have reached such heights and sizes and become so overwhelming, attractive and dear to all American hearts. The ideals of individual liberty, individualism, self-sufficiency, equality, free market, a republican form of government, democracy, pluralism, and patriotism and that kind of thing are dear to all Americans. And the most driving and thrilling concept in the system of Americans’ values and national goals which seems to have penetrated every layer and aspect of American life and culture is the American Dream. TheAmerican Dream is the faith held by many in the U.S.A. that through hard work, courage, and determination one can achieve financial prosperity. These were the values held by many early European settlers, and that have been passed on to subsequent generations. Today, it refers to the idea that one’s prosperity depends upon one’s own abilities and hard work, not on a rigid class structure. Though the meaning of the phrase has changed over America’s history. For some, a) it is the opportunity to achieve more prosperity than they could in their countries of origin; b) for others, it is the opportunity for their children to grow up with an education and career opportunities; c) for some, it is the opportunity to be an individual without the constraints imposed by class, caste, race, or ethnicity. The definition of the American Dream is under constant discussion and debate. The package of beliefs, assumptions, and action patterns labeled as the American Dream has always been a fragile agglomeration of (1) individual freedom of choice in life styles, (2) equal access to economic abundance, and (3) the pursuit of shared objectives mutually advantageous to the individual and society. It teaches Americans to believe that contentment (satisfaction) can be reached through the virtues of thrift, hard work, family loyalty, and faith in the free enterprise system. The American Dream is popularized in countless rags-to-riches stories and in the portrayal of the good life in advertising and on TV shows. Though the term “American Dream” is often associated with immigrants, native-born Americans can also be described as “pursuing the American Dream” or “living the American Dream”. The concept of the American Dream has also been the subject of much criticism. The main criticism is that the American Dream is misleading, that it is an emphasis on material wealth as a measure of success and/or happiness. This concept also ignores other factors of success such as luck, family, language, and wealth one is born into. It also fails to take into account inheritable traits such as intelligence and physical attributes including height, shape, and beauty. U.S. political leaders defend the concept by all possible means. |