Does America Embrace Diversity?

Flip through the pages of the New Trier year book and it seems obvious that we celebrate diversity at our school. Indo Pak, Filipino Club, and Chinese culture club are just a few of the ethnic organizations we take so much pride in sponsoring. And throughout (most of) America's history, people across the world have idolized our country as a place that welcomes all and opens up all kinds of doors that can only lead to a prosperous and happy future. But rather than instantly living the "American Dream," jumping into mainstream America, the vast majority of immigrants would move to slums to live with others of the same nationality, hence creating China towns, German towns, etc., throughout the country. But if America, and even New Trier, truly embrace diversity, why do foreigners seem to feel they must always stick with their own people? Obviously there were significant barriers, especially language, that immigrants faced and continue to face upon arrival at the U.S., which make instantly joining mainstream America virtually impossible. However, that does not explain why those who have grown up in America and speak English as a first language continue to associate themselves with others of their background. In the movie Mean Girls, as Lindsay Lohan's friend explains their school's cliques, she points out the cool Asians, Asian nerds, and cool black kids, to name a few. It seems that while we celebrate the idea of having a diverse population, it is instinctive that as individuals, we tend to stick with people of similar backgrounds; thus, having a segregated society is inevitable.


I found an article that discusses some of the psychology of this pattern. The author writes "On the one hand it is a frequent observation that individuals find it difficult to identify with a massive and monolithic society or state; individual identities are frequently hyphenated. The social fragmentations which serve as objects of identification can be based upon regional, ethnic, linguistic, racial, class, sex or age cleavages. Whatever their basis, and whatever their manifestation, it is not possible to deny the pervasive existence of these divisions. Pan-cultural universals such as this may best be interpreted as being rooted in some general human psychological need and the one postulated here is the need for some relatively small and stable reference and identity group."


We cannot help but want to stick to a smaller clique, one where we have much in common with others and can easily relate to them. Being with people who are similar to ourselves helps strengthen our own sense of identity because we get a better understanding of who we are through interacting with those who we believe are similar to ourselves. Our population as a whole may be diverse, but our cliques most often are not. It is in our nature to stick with our own kind, and so rather than always pushing foreigners to assimilate, we ought to accept our cultural differences and try to let immigrants live their own version of the American Dream, whatever that may be. The best, most realistic way to embrace diversity is to accept and embrace differences among ourselves. One question we have considered during this unit is whether or not we embrace diversity in America, and I think that while we cannot expect everyone of every race to live in one happy integrated society, we should embrace diversity by allowing American citizens, regardless of their background, to embrace their ethnicity, to allow their ethnicity to remain an important part of their identity, rather than pushing them to assimilate and ignore their background to better fit in with white mainstream America. So while embracing diversity does not mean we must fully integrate ourselves with those of differing backgrounds, it can mean that we continue to appreciate cultures that immigrants bring to America, and that we put less emphasis on pushing them to assimilate.