Editing Multiculturalism (section)

===United States===
{{See also|Multicultural education|Race and ethnicity in the United States}}
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[[File:NewYorkStreetScene-People.JPG|thumb|right|250px|People waiting to cross [[Fifth Avenue]]]]
[[File:Many ways in which New Yorkers say "Merry Christmas" or its equivalent. LOC 3797854913.jpg|thumb|270px|{{center|Poster from 1907:}} '''The many ways in which [[Demographic history of New York City|New Yorkers]] say "[[Merry Christmas]]" or its equivalent''';<br/> in [[Arab Americans|Arabic]], [[Armenian Americans|Armenian]], [[Chinese people in New York City|Chinese]], [[Croatian Americans|Croatian]], [[Czech Americans|Czech]], [[Dutch Americans in New York City|Dutch]], [[Esperanto]], [[Finnish Americans|Finnish]], [[Belgian Americans|Flemish]], [[French Americans|French]], [[Irish Americans in New York City|Gaelic]], [[German Americans|German]], [[Greek Americans|Greek]], [[Yiddish]] (labeled as "[[Hebrew Christian movement|Christian Hebrew]]"), [[Hungarian Americans|Hungarian]], [[Italians in New York City|Italian]], [[Japanese in New York City|Japanese]], [[Lithuanian Americans|Lithuanian]], [[Norwegian Americans|Norwegian]], [[Polish Americans|Polish]], [[Portuguese Americans|Portuguese]], [[Romanian Americans|Romanian]], [[Russian Americans in New York City|Russian]], [[Slovene Americans|Slovene]], [[Spanish language in the United States|Spanish]], [[Swedish Americans|Swedish]], [[Turkish Americans|Turkish]] and [[Ukrainian Americans in New York City|Ukrainian]].<br/><small>''"[[Nicknames of New York City|Gotham]]'s citizens have been called "The Sons of Elsewhere", and their language that spoken at the [[Tower of Babel]]..."''</small>]]
Although official multiculturalism policy is not established at the federal level, ethnic and cultural diversity is common in [[Rural diversity|rural]], suburban and urban areas.<ref>Jeffrey Lehman, ed. ''Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America'' (3rd edition; 6 vol. 2014) [https://www.cengage.com/search/productOverview.do?N=197&Ntk=P_EPI&Ntt=508676737550071330333596981793254059&Ntx=mode%2Bmatchallpartial Online]</ref>

Continuous mass immigration was a feature of the United States economy and society since the first half of the 19th century.<ref name="Isaacs2007">{{cite book|author=Ann Katherine Isaacs|title=Immigration and emigration in historical perspective|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5asNot0c5kwC&pg=PA38|year=2007|publisher=Edizioni Plus|isbn=978-88-8492-498-8|page=38}}</ref> The absorption of the stream of immigrants became, in itself, a prominent feature of America's [[national myth]]. The idea of the [[melting pot]] is a [[metaphor]] that implies that all the immigrant cultures are mixed and amalgamated without state intervention.<ref>Zangwill, Israel. ''The Melting Pot'', 1908.</ref> The melting pot theory implied that each individual immigrant, and each group of immigrants, assimilated into American society at their own pace. This is different from multiculturalism as it is defined above, which does not include complete assimilation and integration.<ref name="Suárez-OrozcoSuárez-Orozco2005">{{cite book|author1=Marcelo M. Suárez-Orozco|author2=Carola Suárez-Orozco|title=The new immigration: an interdisciplinary reader|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=a05uTxwIC4EC&pg=PA39|year=2005|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-0-415-94916-3|page=39}}</ref> The melting pot tradition co-exists with a belief in national unity, dating from the [[Founding Fathers of the United States|American founding fathers]]:

<blockquote>Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people – a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs... This country and this people seem to have been made for each other, and it appears as if it was the design of Providence, that an inheritance so proper and convenient for a band of brethren, united to each other by the strongest ties, should never be split into a number of unsocial, jealous, and alien sovereignties.<ref>[[John Jay]], ''First American Supreme Court Chief Justice'', [[Federalist No. 2|Federalist Paper No. 2]]</ref></blockquote>

[[File:President Clinton's Initiative on Race.jpg|thumb|Staff of President Clinton's [[One America Initiative]]. The President's Initiative on Race was a critical element in President Clinton's effort to prepare the country to embrace diversity.]]
As a philosophy, multiculturalism began as part of the [[pragmatism]] movement at the end of the 19th century in Europe and the United States, then as [[Pluralism (political philosophy)|political]] and [[cultural pluralism]] at the turn of the 20th century.<ref name="CaputiFoster2006">{{cite book|author1=Peter Caputi|author2=Heather Foster|author3=Linda L. Viney|title=Personal construct psychology: new ideas|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0RUXgzHqfOwC&pg=PA18|date=11 December 2006|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|isbn=978-0-470-01943-6|page=18}}</ref> It was partly in response to a new wave of European imperialism in sub-Saharan Africa and the massive immigration of Southern and Eastern Europeans to the United States and Latin America. Philosophers, psychologists and historians and early sociologists such as [[Charles Sanders Peirce]], [[William James]], [[George Santayana]], [[Horace Kallen]], [[John Dewey]], [[W. E. B. Du Bois]] and [[Alain Locke]] developed concepts of cultural pluralism, from which emerged what we understand today as multiculturalism. In ''Pluralistic Universe'' (1909), William James espoused the idea of a "[[plural society]]". James saw pluralism as "crucial to the formation of philosophical and social [[humanism]] to help build a better, more egalitarian society.<ref name=Boening>{{cite news |last=Boening |first=Astrid B. |title=Euro-Islam&nbsp;– A Constructivist Idea or a Concept of the English School? |newspaper=European Union Miami Analysis (EUMA) |volume=4
|issue=12 |pages=3–10 |publisher=Miami-Florida European Union Center of Excellence |date=May 2007 |url=http://www.miami.edu/eucenter/Boening_EuroIslam_EUMA2007edi.pdf |access-date=30 September 2009 }}</ref>

The educational approach to multiculturalism has since spread to the grade school system, as school systems try to rework their curricula to introduce students to diversity earlier – often on the grounds that it is important for minority students to see themselves represented in the classroom.<ref name="Volk2004">{{cite book|author=Terese M. Volk|title=Music, Education, and Multiculturalism: Foundations and Principles|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PaeuLCnJLXAC&pg=PA160|date=14 October 2004|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-517975-0|page=160}}</ref><ref>[http://www.communitynewspapers.com/miami-beach/miami-beach-diversity-at-work/ Jesse Kirkpatrick. (2011). ''Miami Beach: Diversity at Work''. Miami Beach News. Retrieved from communitynewspapers.com]</ref> Studies estimated 46 million Americans ages 14 to 24 to be the most diverse generation in American society.<ref>{{cite news|last=Jayson|first=Sharon|title='Colorblind' Generation Doesn't Blink at Interracial Relationships|newspaper=USA Today|date=7 February 2006}}</ref> In 2009 and 2010, controversy erupted in Texas as the state's curriculum committee made several changes to the state's requirements, often at the expense of minorities. They chose to juxtapose [[Lincoln's second inaugural address|Abraham Lincoln's inaugural address]] with that of Confederate president [[Jefferson Davis]];<ref>[https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/17/AR2010031700560.html Historians speak out against proposed Texas textbook changes] Michael Birnbaum, 18 March 2010.</ref> they debated removing Supreme Court Justice [[Thurgood Marshall]] and labor-leader [[Cesar Chavez]]<ref>[https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB124753078523935615 The Culture Wars' New Front: U.S. History Classes in Texas], Stephanie Simon, 14 July 2009.</ref> and rejected calls to include more Hispanic figures, in spite of the high Hispanic population in the state.<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/education/13texas.html Texas Conservatives Win Curriculum Change], James C. McKinley Jr., 12 March 2010.</ref>

According to a 2000 analysis of [[domestic terrorism in the United States]], "A distinctive feature of American terrorism is the ideological diversity of perpetrators. White racists are responsible for over a third of the deaths, and black militants have claimed almost as many. Almost all of the remaining deaths are attributable to Puerto Rican nationalists, Islamic extremists, revolutionary leftists and emigre groups."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hewitt |first=Christopher |date=March 2000 |title=Patterns of American terrorism 1955–1998: An historical perspective on terrorism-related fatalities |url=http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09546550008427546 |journal=Terrorism and Political Violence |language=en |volume=12 |issue=1 |pages=1–14 |doi=10.1080/09546550008427546 |s2cid=146734761 |issn=0954-6553|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Twenty years later, far-right and white racists were observed as the leading perpetrators of domestic terrorism in the U.S.<ref>{{cite journal |url=https://www.csis.org/analysis/escalating-terrorism-problem-united-states |title=The Escalating Terrorism Problem in the United States |website=Center for Strategic & International Studies |date=17 June 2020 |first1=Seth G. |last1=Jones |first2=Catrina |last2=Doxsee |first3=Nicholas |last3=Harrington |access-date=29 April 2023}}</ref> According to a 2020 study by the Strategic & International Studies, right-wing extremists are responsible for the murder of 329 people since 1994<ref>{{Cite web |last=Pasley |first=James |title=Trump frequently accuses the far-left of inciting violence, yet right-wing extremists have killed 329 victims in the last 25 years, while antifa members haven't killed any, according to a new study |url=https://www.businessinsider.com/right-wing-extremists-kill-329-since-1994-antifa-killed-none-2020-7 |access-date=23 August 2023 |website=Business Insider |language=en-US}}</ref> (over half due to the terrorist bombing of the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah building in Oklahoma City, which killed 168 people).<ref>{{Cite web |title=Oklahoma City Bombing |url=https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/oklahoma-city-bombing |access-date=23 August 2023 |website=Federal Bureau of Investigation |language=en-us}}</ref>

==== Effect of diversity on civic engagement ====
A 2007 study by [[Robert D. Putnam|Robert Putnam]] encompassing 30,000 people across the US found that diversity had a negative effect on civic engagement. The greater the diversity, the fewer people voted and the less they volunteered for community projects; also, trust among neighbours was only half that of homogenous communities.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://archive.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/05/the_downside_of_diversity/|title=The downside of diversity |website=The Boston Globe|language=en|access-date=31 December 2018}}</ref> Putnam says, however, that "in the long run immigration and diversity are likely to have important cultural, economic, fiscal, and developmental benefits", as long as society successfully overcomes the short-term problems.<ref name="Putnam, Robert D. 2007"/> Putnam adds that his "extensive research and experience confirm the substantial benefits of diversity, including racial and ethnic diversity, to our society."<ref>{{cite news|last=Berlett|first=Tom|url=https://www.chronicle.com/blogs/percolator/robert-putnam-says-his-research-was-twisted/30357|title=Harvard Sociologist Says His Research Was 'Twisted'|date=15 August 2012|work=[[The Chronicle of Higher Education]]}}</ref>[[File:San Carlos de la Barra Fort, Isla de San Carlos, Estado Zulia, Venezuela.jpg|thumb|Bartizan in Venezuela]]