I am white, the purported ethnic majority of United States. However, the community in which I live is a huge exception to what is the standard in America. Because of the immense Hispanic influence in this area, I am part of the minority. In the community where I’ve been raised and lived for as long as I can remember, I have always been the minority.
It goes without saying that there are huge cultural differences between the resident Hispanics and the background my parents come from. My parents were, from my earliest memories, part of the “white moderately conservative Christian culture” from the mid-west (Minnesota) when they first moved here. Thus, through my childhood they impressed upon me their culture and raised me as they had been raised themselves. However, unlike them I was being raised in a cultural environment where, among many other things, education is stressed less, drinking is emphasized more, parties are much more commonplace, and Spanish is the most commonly spoken language.
Because of the huge cultural influence imposed on me by my simply living here, it’s only natural that some aspects of their culture have been impressed upon me. So I have a bittersweet taste in my mouth. I’ve lived in this culture for so long that I can’t imagine what life would be like without it; I’ve lived here so long that I’ve grown extremely attached to it. But in many ways it’s in stark contrast to how I was raised by my parents. Thus, a conflict is born from the differences between the two value sets imposed by the cultures I have been raised in. It’s tough for me to pick one culture over the other, but it’s impossible for both cultural values to exist within me. Therefore one culture must ultimately dominate in my life.
It’s my conclusion then that multiculturalism cannot exist in the form which our society is currently attempting to force us into. First and foremost, when multiple cultures are all forced into the same space, one culture must ultimately dominate over all others. This is because of the differences in the value sets between cultures. No two cultures can coexist with the same level dominance in any one space peacefully because the differences between these value sets imposed by the cultures will cause problems.
It is easy to praise and believe in multiculturalism when the only varying culture you see is one week out of a year when you travel to Florida or California for your summer vacation. It’s a completely different thing to live in an alien culture for extremely long periods of time. Eventually you will either assimilate their culture, or grow to spite their culture.
From the little I know about your private life Cless, I can tell you live in a similar situation to me - a Chinese descendant in a largely white society, living with his somewhat traditional parents. Would you say that as you’ve aged, their culture has had as much an effect on you as when you were a child? Or have you begun to shy away from their culture and adopt the indigenous culture instead?
And less my argument that multiculturalism cannot exist be taken the wrong way, let me make an important point. No one culture is inherently better than another; I believe people will simply adapt to the culture which has the most influence in their lives. Anyone who is raised with two sets of culture influencing them must ultimately decide which culture they wish to support. If this process is repeated enough times, eventually all cultures but one will fade away. Thus, the very essence of multiculturalism - that multiple cultures can coexist - is false, and the whole premise of multiculturalism falls apart.
