Creative Americanization
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Edited by J. Akuma-Kalu Njoku
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Creative
Americanization
First Edition
By J. Akuma-Kalu Njoku
Western Kentucky University
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Printed in the United States of America
ISBN: 978-1-60927-613-3
Contents
Introduction
1
Part I: Conceptual Preparation
3
Core Concepts
3
Continuity and Change
3
Multiculturalism
4
Multicultural Education
4
Centric Fusion Perspective on Ethnic Diversity
and Common Nationality
5
The Centrifugal Perspective on Ethnic Diversity
and Common Nationality
6
Centripetal Perspective on Ethnic Diversity
and Common Nationality
7
The Culture of Variation
8
Diversity as a Concept
8
Variety
9
Selective Appropriation and Creative Americanization
9
Six Important Aspects of Culture to Consider
While Exploring the Concepts of Diversity, Variety,and
Variation as Ways of Enhancing Life in the United States
10
But How Did America Become a Land of Ethnic Diversity?
11
Nation-State and Nationality
12
Manifest Destiny
12
Massive Immigration
13
Americanization
13
Ethnic Identity and Ethnicity
14
Intellectual Assumptions or Hypotheses
15
Persistent Issues of Ethnic Diversity and Common
Nationality in the United States
17
Part II: Ethnic Sources of America’s
Multicultural Heritage
21
Native Americans
21
English Americans
27
Irish Americans
31
German Americans
34
European Jewish Americans
39
African Americans
40
Asian Americans
47
Japanese Americans
49
Mexican Americans
51
Part III: Variety Is the Spice of Rice
—Sample Student Projects
Steak and Rice (El Filete, El Biste)
57
Travis Breen
58
Mills White
59
Gayla Garrett Illswhite
59
Arabic Rice Patties
Sara Lockhart
60
Spanish Rice
Miranda Bugg
60
Jessica Higgins
61
Brooke Shirley
61
Bethany Gowens
62
Courtney Crawford
62
Maranda Aldridge
63
Brynn Dumalski
63
Ben Nichols
64
Ally Bruno
64
Rice Balls (Italian/American Recipe)
Sushi
Red Beans and Rice Gumbo
Spicy Thai Rice
Cuban Yellow Rice
Arroz Español
Vietnamese American Rice
Brazilian Beans and Rice
Arabic Rice
Ruzz Bi-L-Khudar
Mujadarah
Katie M. Tapley
65
Lindsay Evans
65
Ally Bruno
66
Spencer Lawrence
66
German Rice
David Hamm
67
Baguine Rice
Ashley Mahaney
67
Pineapple Rice
Mackenzie Cable
68
Coconut Rice
Mackenzie Cable
68
German Rice
Alyssa Givens
69
Abby Browning
69
Moroccan Rice Pudding
Anna Leatherbee
69
Guatemalan Green Rice
Ian Elliott
70
Man-O-Min (Ojibwa Wild Rice)
Brittany Hall
70
Italian Rice Pie
Brandi Miller
70
Alan Huntsman
71
Hanna Preslar
71
Jonathan Somoza
72
Dustin Oakes
72
Regina Bagdasaraova
73
Tiana Washington
73
Bosnian American Rice
Mehrudina Hibic
74
Biriani
Jennifer Ramsey
74
Vietnamese Chicken Rice Balls
Emily Hornback
75
Kuwaiti Chicken Rice
Elizabeth Priest
75
Emma Canter
76
Robin Ray
77
Ashley Hurt
77
Sarah Arnold
78
Brent Smith
79
Leigh Kerr
79
Bridgett Link
80
Amanda Williams
81
Jay Starks
81
French Onion Rice
Egyptian Rice (Ruzz Bi-L-Khudar)
African Yellow Rice
German Sweet Rice
Argentine Rice-Veggie Salad
Rice Recipe
Chilean Tomatoes Rellenos
Arabic Rice
Moroccan Rice Dish
Thai Rice
Chicken Fried Rice
Hoppin’ John
Americanized Costa Rican Rice
Burning Tree Wild Rice with Pine Nuts
Mongolian Barbecue Rice
Cherokee Chicken
Americanized Tiawan/Zong Zi Rice
Chicken And Sausage Gumbo
Chicken Afritada (Filipino Recipe)
Mexican Rice
Sarah Newton
82
Khalela Hatchett
82
Ryan Messex
82
Algerian Chicken
Will Hollis
83
Paella Valenciana
Anna Prak
83
Puerto Rican Rice
Dean Gibson
84
Houston Puckett
84
Hawaiian Chicken
Adam Ray
85
Rice Pilaf
Adam Ray
85
Mahnoomin (Rice Pudding)
Hannah Gilbert
86
Mango Sticky Rice Dessert
Bethany Brannon
86
Jaymie Roberts
87
Devin Burton
87
Courtney Marx
87
Chad Meacham
88
Kate Payton
88
Kelli Moseley
89
Brittany Layman
89
Americanized Japanese Rice
Katie Honadle
89
Mexican Rice
Daniel Misiuta
90
Chicken Adobo (Filipino)
Americanized Nigerian Rice
Chicken With Rice (Arroz Con Pollo)
Rice And Beef Dish
Navajo Avocado Rice
Cuban Black Beans And Rice
Rice Simmered In Beer
Wild Rice & Cranberries “Choctaw”
Puerto Rican Rice & Beans
African American Southern Alabama
The History of Rice
90
Endnotes
93
Bibliography
95
Credits
99
INTRODUCTION
RODUCTIO
T
his textbook discusses the creative Americanization of cultural resources. Creative
Americanization is the conscious transformation of the products or objects of
other world cultures to suit the American taste. As people from diverse ethnic and
—immigrant groups and those from many different regions of this country mix and
mingle, they pick and choose from one another unique things they need to enrich their
lives. The unique cultural products of each individual ethnic group (Native Americans,
English Americans, Irish Americans, German Americans, African Americans, Asian
Americans, and Hispanic/Latino) Americans) contribute to America’s multicultural
heritage, adding to the assortment and giving people in America opportunities to
pick and choose what they like. After they have picked and chosen what they want
from individual ethnic or immigrant groups, Americans further modify the selected
commodities to suit American tastes. By consciously modifying the selected cultural
products, Americans produce variants, which go to increase the variety that already
exists. Many American ethnic groups have taken advantage of America’s likeness for
ethnic foods to introduce their best dishes in the United States. There is no major
American city without Mexican and Chinese restaurants, especially the latter. Many
cities and towns have more than one Chinese or at least one Chinese and other
Asian restaurants (Japanese, East Indian, Thai, etc.) And there are many Asian food
stores where people who do not want to go Asian restaurants can go to buy Asian
condiments. As is the case of pizza, all the ethnic food restaurants in the United States
serve modified variants of what you would find in their countries of origin.
Creative Americanization not only begets variety that spices up life in the United
States, it characterizes the American way of life. The American people in their everyday
lives explore and exploit the ethnic languages, religions, ethnic foods, games, and other
cultural resources of their neighborhoods, towns, and neighbors. Americans like to
try different kinds of one commodity, say, fruit, dress, etc. Take something as simple
as pizza, a commodity introduced by Italian Americans. American businesses have
developed assortments from which to choose. Take another example: the custom of
using a tree as a decorative object during Christmas. Originally a part of German
American custom, other American ethnic groups have adopted it. Within many communities, there are variations in family traditions of the Christmas tree. This kind of
mixing and blending, multicultural exchange, and variation is pervasive in American
Introduction
| 1
culture. Variety informs and guides the emergence of new forms in America. It is a
factor of intersection among people with essentially different cultural ideals and
commodities from which others draw.
Our challenge is to understand the emergent quality of variety well enough to
anticipate difference and to be able to generate new forms that will be recognizably
American. Modifying something different and creating varieties can be a genuine
source of individual, community, and national strength, finding ways to modify and
adapt the variety of team members or respective constituent ethnic groups to our
corporate, communal, and national advantage in culturally significant ways. The goal
is to understand the ways in which the unique contributions of selected ethnic groups
have been and could be Americanized to add variety to cultural life in the United
States, keeping in mind the implication of the old adage, “variety is the spice of life.”
In Part III of this book we shall see how students have used rice to demonstrate the
benefits of creative Americanization.
Each of the outlined entries in this textbook is intended to be a discussion point.
Students should be given time to brainstorm on each entry. They should be encouraged to explain their perspectives and to demonstrate their arguments. In their focus
groups or general class discussions, students should see the perspectives of their
classmates as alternatives to be considered as they explore ways to enhance life in
America. The class or focus groups should pool their points together and come up
with working ideas concerning how to use what they have learned to enhance life in
culturally significant ways. The classroom, in this regard, provides an enabling contact zone for a kind of communal face-to-face reciprocity, dialogue, understanding,
cooperation, knowledge, and sensitivity that lead to mutual respect and trust. That is
the culture-centered approach.
2 | Creative Americanization
Part II:
Conceptual
tual Preparation
Pre
Core Concepts
T
he undergraduate level is a good place to start this kind of conceptual preparation.
It is at this level that most students advance and deepen their knowledge bases as
they begin to learn the basic theories, ideas, and concepts behind what they already
know. Undergraduates who have declared their majors begin to learn the theories
and organizing principles of their disciplines in relation to subjects, topics, or study
objects. It is during the period of their conceptual preparation that students learn how
to formulate hypotheses that will inform and guide their term projects, and ultimately
their carriers. In addition to the courses they take in their major disciplines, students
are required to take General Education courses in colleges and departments other
than their own. Through these classes, students often learn the theoretical perspectives
of other disciplines. Some universities require all students to take courses that satisfy
the World Culture requirement of their General Education programs.
Continuity and Change
The first theory we shall learn in this course is the theory of continuity and change. That
is the theory which accounts for stability and variation in culture. The theory states,
“The more things change, the more they stay (relatively) the same.” The theory could
be used to explain almost everything that grows. Take yourself for example, looking
at your pictures from K through 12 and your current identification pictures, you will
notice that although you have changed in many ways, your basic features and characteristics remain primarily the same. If you travel back to the communities and towns in
which you grew up, you will notice that they have changed over the years as businesses
come and go or during periods of rapid development but the basic character and feel of
the communities remain relatively the same.
Conceptual Preparation
| 3
Take the campus of a growing university as another example. Buildings get
remodeled, departments are added or abolished, or the faculty makeup gets altered,
but the university’s fundamental spirit of advancing knowledge and its commitment to
excellence remain the same. In the greater city or town of which the university is a part,
it is often the case that student population increases change the city’s demography. As
increasing population changes, it leads to modifications of the cultural landscape of the
city or town. The farmlands and agrarian settlements that are so typical of the original
settlements give way to urban development and mass residences. The influx of peoples
and additional ethnic groups facilitates the introduction of differences in and varieties
of languages, products, foods, games, customs, and decorative objects. These cultural
contributions add to the variety that is the attraction of the city.
Multiculturalism
Multiculturalism refers to the existence of multiple cultural dimensions resulting from people
from diverse ethnic groups living together in one nation with its own stable culture that is
nevertheless influenced or affected by the existence of the other component cultures. One
of the most stable elements in
American culture is the Anglo
cultural ideal together with the
English language. Right from the
beginning years of the United
States, there was a pronounced
emphasis placed on English as
the lingua franca. This emphasis
on English as the language of
business and communication
increased the importance of
Anglo-Saxon cultural elements.
Therefore, regardless of the
increasing number of ethnic
communities and infrastructural Figure 1: Children often learn about other cultures and
development, people in America ethinicities in school.
have a shared ideal way of life and
a means of communication that is uniquely American in the United States.
Multicultural Education
Multicultural education is a method of teaching and learning whose curriculum
includes the perspectives of the cultures of the students’ ethnic groups in a school
system. In the late 1960s, the desire to include the ethnicities of students in American
schools led what became known as the ethnic studies movement. Until then, through
its public schools the United States used the Anglo-centric approach to acculturate and
4 | Creative Americanization
transform people into the national culture. Following the 1972 report by the Carnegie
Commission on Higher Education that called for “ways to approach knowledge from
wider perspectives on self and on cultures” scholars (Grant, 1979; Gay, 1994; Banks,
1992 and 1994; Levine, 1996; Alabos; Takaki) have been persuasively making the
case for multicultural education and for the dialogue of cultural traditions (Sweet,
McLean, et.al 2008).
Proponents of the multicultural educators endeavor to teach students to accept
their own ethnicity and those of other students. They help students learn about social
justice. Banks (1994:44) categorically stated that “multicultural education is a reform
movement designed to make major curricular and structural changes in the education
of students.” Enjoin leaders and educators of goodwill, from all political and ideological persuasions, to participate in genuine discussions, dialogues, and debates that will
help us formulate visionary and workable solutions (Gay 1994: 43). Educators were
required to offer concrete suggestions on how to teach a college level course that is
multicultural. After considering some general and specific questions on the demands
of multicultural education in a classroom Abalos notes that multiculturalism embraces
the idea of multiple, diversity, variety, and variation and inclusion as part of a student’s
intellectual development.
Multicultural education continues to be the overarching paradigm of many courses
seeking to address the challenges of ethnic diversity and common nationality through
education in 21st century America. Three perspectives, namely (1) the centric fusion
perspective, (2) the centrifugal, and (3) the centripetal perspectives have emerged in
the pedagogy of ethnic diversity and common nationality.
Centric Fusion Perspective on Ethnic Diversity and Common Nationality
This perspective promotes the fusion of diverse ethnic groups from various countries
together into one mega Anglo American nationality. This centric fusion perspective
began during the period of nation building in the United States as a means of uniting
all Americans of west European ancestry. This model was further expanded by utilizing whiteness to give Americans of European ancestry a sense of common nationality
in the United States. The “melting pot” has since become a metaphor for the fusion
of white dominant European ethnic groups as well as other minority groups into one
group—the American. Lawrence Levine has credited the first use of the term “melting
pot” to the French immigrant J. Hector de Crevecoeur, who used the term “to describe
the process of identity formation in America.” But it was Israel Zangwill’s 1908 play The
Melting Pot “which permanently fused the term to the process” of identity formation
in the United States (Levine, 107). In Israel Zangwill’s play, the hero, David Quixano, a
Russian Jewish immigrant composer, speaks of the United States as
“God’s Crucible, the great Melting-Pot where all the races of Europe are
melting and re-forming (The real American) “is only in the Crucible, (and)
Conceptual Preparation | 5
will be the fusion of all races—Celt and Latin, Slav and Teuton, Greek and
Syrian—black and yellow.
(from Levine, 107)
The inclusion of “black and yellow” leaves the impression of the inclusion of
Africans and Native Americans. Nevertheless, due to the overwhelming dominance
of white Europeans, whiteness and Anglo-Saxon societal conventions set the
standard for socialization and character
formation in the United States. White
Americans, in an attempt to eliminate
uniqueness, used whiteness to absorb any
European ethnic group that came to the
United States. Furthermore, all white ethnic groups were consciously and unconsciously made to accept the metaphorical
designation “Caucasian,” representing the
forever white Caucus Mountain, thereby
completely disregarding their European
primordial homelands and accepting one
American white nationality.
The centric-fusion perspective tends
to overlook the fact that ethnicity and
community traditions diehard. Typically,
the further an ethnic group moves from
its original country, the more intense their
ethnicity and about maintaining some of
the community traditions of their original
Figure 2: Chinatown, San Francisco, countries. Those who support the white
centric fusion of diverse ethnic groups and
California
cultures leave the impression that the white
Anglo American culture is superior to the community traditions of other ethnic groups
that make up the Union.
The Centrifugal Perspective on Ethnic Diversity and Common Nationality
The centrifugal perspective assumes that non-Anglo American ethnic groups tend
to gravitate away from the center. It differs from the centric-fusion view that pulls
ethnic groups to the white centrifugal perspective seems to emphasize the resistance
non Anglo groups have to conform to the Anglo-American mainstream culture.
Some ethnic groups have succeeded in creating their own form of ethnic unity by
deliberately excluding themselves from the rest of the society. The extreme case is
that of the Amish Americans. This kind of unity by exclusion led to the formation of
6 | Creative Americanization
towns, such as Chinatown, Germantown, Amish villages, Little Tokyo, Little Italy, etc.
Scholars who use the centrifugal approach to study the dynamics of ethnic diversity
and common nationality provide evidence to show that the centric fusion approach
causes minority ethnic groups to lose their uniqueness or basic identities. They see
the attempts to maintain ethnic difference as resistance to acculturation, even as
being unpatriotic.
Beginning in the 1960s, it became clear that all white Americans did not originate in England.
White European Americans who were not of Anglo-Saxon ancestry began to assert their own
ethnic identities. Acculturated Scandinavian Americans began to use their heritage of Nordic
pride to unite themselves. By the 1970s, it seemed that American ethnic groups were pulling away
from a shared sense of union. Ethnic separation by choice or design in the name of diversity led to
cultural fragmentation, and multiculturalism became an ambivalent buzzword in the American
body politic, the media, and education (embraced by some and despised by others). Scholars who
engaged in this kind of scholarship paid great attention to issues of subjugation and suppression,
and advocated empowerment.
Centripetal Perspective on Ethnic Diversity and Common Nationality
The third perspective is the centripetal. It affirms the continuing existence of ethnic
groups in ways that encourage identity and relatedness, relative independence, and mutual dependence and reciprocity. Scholars who approach the study of ethnic diversity
and common nationality from the centripetal perspective pay attention to the dynamics
of ethnic identity and common nationality. They articulate their ideas in phrases such as
“unity in diversity,” “the mosaic America,” and “the salad bowl.” For my own purposes
I use the metaphor of a choir, in which four parts are directed toward harmony. This
demonstrates the relatedness of identities and the
dynamic
convergence
that is the goal of the
centripetal perspective.
Like parts in a choir,
every ethnic group contributes to the harmony
that none by itself can
create. Each feeds off of
the other component
voice parts as they blend,
thereby
strengthening one another and
the whole. Thus, the
centripetal perspective Figure 3: Immigrant children on Ellis Island, 1908.
encourages the dynamic
Conceptual Preparation
| 7
convergence of essential differences, promoting healthy multicultural understanding,
multicultural exchange, and mutual reciprocity.
The Culture of Variation
American culture can be described as the culture of variation, which can best be
articulated by the old saying, “Variety is the spice of life.” As American ethnic
groups pick and choose from one another the games, foods, customs, dresses,
and decorative objects they need to enhance their cultural lives in the United
States, they manage to find creative ways to modify and create variations of their
products to suit the American environment, tastes, needs, and lives. By the principle of
variation, most immigrant and ethnic groups increase the variety in the diversity
that is available to all Americans to enjoy. Students in my Cultural Diversity class are
assigned projects that test this adage using rice, music, and games. The second part
of this book contains students’ presentations that demonstrate the culture of variation by exploring the ways in which the rice traditions of various ethnic groups can
be Americanized to enrich our food culture. The organizing principles of variation
in diversity to generate variety help to shape their preparedness for the culture of
diversity and variation.
Diversity as a Concept
Diversity as a concept embraces the ideas of being diverse, many, multiple, and
various. Diversity has the capacity to go into various and diverse directions. Some
directions are more appropriate than others in relation to gender, regional, racial,
religious, age, class, and ethnic differences. Thus, diversity gives rise to variety and
multiple choices. Diversity connotes a range of choices from appropriate to most
appropriate or even to not appropriate. The word multiple (as in multiple choice)
also suggests having many parts, elements, or components. Usually, each component
has its own identity. For example, the word music in many cultures has three main
component parts-namely song, dance, and some form of organized instrumental
sound codes. Each of these components can be music, but music in its most complete
form is a combination of all three. While it is important for students to know about
the essential differences in contributions that diverse groups have made to diversity
in the area of culture in the United States (Gay 1994, 47), they should also learn the
benefits of variety to the American way of life and culture. It is even more important
that students should learn how to create varieties by Americanizing this country’s
multicultural heritages.
8 | Creative Americanization
Variety
Variety entails and inspires variability, flexibility, alternatives, and multiple
choices that we make in our daily lives. On a daily basis, most people face the
experience of choosing from assorted colors and kinds of outfits as we get ready
to go to work or school. The same is true of choosing from assorted food and food
habits, numerous forms of services, recreation, etc. Americans of diverse ethnic
groups, like people living in other contemporary nation states, are always negotiating their different identities and selectively appropriating from the cultures and
community traditions of one another to enrich their lives. This kind of differential
negotiation cannot take place without the varieties that result from the unique
identities and contributions of peoples who vary in their real community traditions.
Our challenge is to understand the emergent quality of variety in culturally significant ways. We need to know the organizing principles of variety in such a way as to
be able to generate new forms and patterns that strengthen the primary institutions
of culture (community, religion, economy, government, education, and recreation)
in the United States.
Selective Appropriation and Creative Americanization
In a multicultural America, people pick and choose from the heritage of peoples of
other world cultures to spice up American lifestyles. This point can be illustrated
by the variety of salad dressings available to modern American consumers. In addition to American ranch, we have French, Thousand Island, and Italian dressings.
Another way of illustrating this concept is through the variety of different pizzas,
a commodity introduced by Italian Americans. The choices of available toppings,
crusts, and sauces offered by today’s pizza parlors and producers speak to the
variety of this product. The same can be said of the Christmas tree. Originally a
part of German American custom, this tradition has been adopted and adapted
by other American ethnic groups. Today, the production of the evergreen tree for
in-house Christmas decoration has proliferated and become profitable in the United
States. This kind of selective appropriation and variation is pervasive in American
culture. American businesses are self-consciously mass producing and creatively
Americanizing selected ethnic heritages. By Americanizing and massively reproducing the ethnic items they have selectively appropriated, American businesses
enhance the quality of life in the United States. Variety characterizes American
society and culture.
Many ethnic groups have taken advantage of America’s consumption of ethnic
foods to introduce their best dishes in the United States. The most numerous of
these ethnic food traditions are Mexican and Asian restaurants. Many cities and
towns have at least one Chinese restaurant, and, in most cases, another Asian restaurant, such as Japanese, East Indian, Thai, etc. If price or convenience is an issue
with Asian takeout, the availability of ingredients and products, not only from
Conceptual Preparation
| 9
specialty Asian supermarkets but also chain food stores, can make Asian food
readily accessible. This allows Americans to prepare their own modified variants
of Asian American dishes; thus, variety leads to the emergence of new forms in
America.
Six Important Aspects of Culture to Consider
While Exploring the Concepts of Diversity, Variety, and Variation
as Ways of Enhancing Life in the United States
1. Environmental and Material (specifically domesticated, built, and natural
elements): Environmental factors affect the way people live their lives and what
they produce. The variety of natural resources requires different kinds of industries
and tools, labor forces, and managerial or corporate culture. In turn, these would
require many different sets of skills and lead to the production of various kinds of
material culture—house types, dress, food items, tools, and decorative objects.
2. Linguistic: There more languages than the number of ethnic groups that exist in
the United States. People who live in different regions—prairie, coastal, desert,
and mountainous regions—speak differently from one another. They have varying
physical features, climates, and weather conditions, and accordingly have many
ways of describing and explaining their environments. Environmental factors often
determine the primary occupations of the inhabitants of any given place. And
the more environmental diverse a country, city, or town is the more the variety of
professions one finds in it.
3. Occupational: The sheer size of America ensures the environmental diversity of its
territory. Just some of this diversity includes the eastern mountainous regions of
Appalachia, the Blue Ridge Mountains, the Allegheny Mountains, the Rockies, the
farmlands of the Midwest, the desert regions of the Southwest, and the coastal areas
of both the Pacific and Atlantic coasts. The different environments affect primary
occupations of the various regions of the United States. In addition, the highly
industrialized and technologically advanced nature of American business allows
for an abundance of professions.
4. Religious: Just like language, there are many religions with different customs,
rituals, and modes of worship and dressing, such as Christianity, Judaism, Islam,
Buddhism, Hinduism, and various others. Even within the same religion, as is
obviously the case with Christianity, there are many denominations. Each in turn
has variations in their Christian creeds, confessions, and methods of worship.
5. Customary Practices: Related to religious diversity are many communal customs,
fairs, and holidays. Add to these the accumulated conventions and community
traditions of different ethnic groups, and you find a great mosaic of traditional
American culture.
6. Ethnic: The term ethnic refers to any linguistic group other than the mainstream or
dominant one in any given place. In a nation-state like the United States, where the
10 | Creative Americanization
Residents Reporting Other Languages Spoken at Home
60.00%
50.00%
Spanish
40.00%
Indo-European
30.00%
Asian & Pacific
Islander
Other
20.00%
10.00%
0.00%
Figure 4: Center for Bilingual Education: 2000.
English by the principle of first effective settlement became the dominant group,
people belonging to other linguistic and or other known national groups such as
Germans, Spanish, and French are regarded as the ethnics. So the United States is
a nation of tremendous ethnic diversity. And each ethnic group embraces gender,
racial, class, ethnic, and age groups as well as numerous voluntary associations.
The uniqueness of each individual ethnic group—Native Americans, English Americans
Irish Americans, German Americans, Jewish Americans, African Americans, Asian
Americans, and Hispanic/Latino Americans contributes to America’s multicultural
heritage. Their customs and community traditions help to expand opportunities available to Americans in order to enhance their lives.
But How Did America Become a Land of Ethnic Diversity?
In the 15th and 16th centuries, during the Age of Exploration, Europeans got the idea
of discovering lands outside of Europe to extend the imperial powers of the European
kings and queens. Europeans were inspired to stretch the limits of their known world.
Lands discovered during this exploration would belong to the emperors, kings, or
queens of the countries of the explorers who discovered them. If there were indigenous
people occupying the land at the time of discovery, those people would be converted
to Christianity and made subjects of the European monarchs. Numerous financers
joined the enterprises and funded many explorations, seeking their fortunes beyond
the horizon. The land discovery was so successful that the newfound lands became the
New World, divided into territories of the European countries (i.e., Spanish, French,
and British territories) and, eventually, crown colonies.
For the effective control and command of the colonies, colonial administrators, merchants, clergymen, and soldiers, were appointed or recruited. The first settlers brought
indentured servants and commoners whose languages, religions, occupations, and
Conceptual Preparation | 11
customary practices helped to establish the community traditions of their newfound
lands or territories. For example, the parts of North America that eventually became
the United States, were settled by people from Great Britain (England, Scotland, and
Wales), France, and Spain. English community traditions greatly influenced the eastern
seaboard of the Atlantic coast. At the same time, French pioneer settlers, explorers,
and prospectors established French community traditions in the Louisiana territory.
Simultaneously, Spanish settlers were effectively establishing their traditions in the
region around the Pacific Ocean; primarily in California, New Mexico, and Texas in
the southwest, as well as in Florida in the southeast. Eventually the Spanish and French
regions were included in the Union.
Ethnic diversity in the United States was further augmented by the influx of the
enslaved peoples of African descent who were forced to migrate to the Americas during the period of the Atlantic slave trade. The enslaved Africans primarily lived in the
southeastern part of the United States, where tobacco and later cotton were the mainstay
of the British American economy. According to folklore of the area, the region, because
of the concentration of enslaved Africans, whose black heads used to stretch across the
white cotton fields at harvest times, became known as the Black Belt. Enslaved Africans
who lived and worked in antebellum plantation communities effectively settled and established the traditions of the Deep South, especially Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi.
Nation-State and Nationality
The United States of America as a nation began with the coming together of the former
English colonies to form the Union. This was further developed into international
diplomacy that rejected the claims by European countries to North American lands.
Manifest Destiny
Soon after it was formed, the U.S government developed the philosophy that it was
the county’s destiny to own the lands between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. That
philosophy developed into the political policy that became the driving force of the
westward territorial expansion of the United States. Then, by purchase and treaties,
the Union annexed French and Spanish territories into one United States of America.
The people who lived in the former French and Spanish regions automatically became
citizens of the United States. The U.S. government took many lands belonging to the
indigenous peoples of North America by force and by numerous treaties. The rapid rate
at which the American government was acquiring lands became a point of validation
for the philosophy that it was the destiny of the United States to own land from the
mid-Atlantic region to the Pacific Ocean, or “from sea to shining sea.”
12 | Creative Americanization
Massive Immigration
Due to the enormous amount of land available as a result of Manifest Destiny, the United
States opened its doors to massive immigration. The first wave of immigrants came
from Western Europe. In the latter parts of the immigration period, immigrants began
to arrive from Eastern Europe, Asia, and southern Europe. People were enticed to leave
their ancestral homes with the possibility of greater opportunities and vast tracks of
land offered at cheap prices by the U.S. government. The arrival of massive amounts of
immigrants in the 19th century led to the establishment of numerous concentric ethnic
communities like Germantown, Amish villages, Little Italy, Little Sweden, and so on.
We can point to almost countless numbers of cities, towns, and burgs with European
place names that were established during this period of massive European immigration
to illustrate this point. (The educational videos “Ellis Island and “Remembering Ellis
Island” illustrate this very well.)
Enterprising Europeans among these waves of immigrants discovered natural
or mineral resources and established cottage industries and farms as a part of the
westward expanding American pioneer settlements. The United States provided the
protection that the pioneers needed by having battalions in forts across the land.
The military forts became centers of life and multiethnic communities. The U.S.
government also built a transcontinental railroad known as the Pacific Railroad to
hasten territorial expansion and connect widely separated towns. Train stations and
halts became residential areas for multiethnic communities. With time, the ease
of movement made possible by transcontinental transportation, mechanization of
agriculture, industrialization, and urbanization led to the development of multi
ethnic and heterogeneous communities.
Americanization
Americanization can be seen as a positive process of transforming people into Americans
and a means of making things suitable for American interest. It is generally associated
with social transformation, especially with the kind of transformation that immigrants
go through as they become Americans in the United States. There seems to be a tacit
assumption in the United States that all immigrants, as they become American citizens,
are forced to acculturate to the conventions of the Anglo American middle class. Yet the
fact remains that all Americans, when they move from their respective communities,
counties, and parishes to live in other places in the United States, undergo some kind
of cultural transformation in order to adapt to the operational standards of American
towns and workplaces. The adjustments that people make to their lifestyles to suit the
American environment are, therefore, positive forms of Americanization. Having said
that, I must point out though that when Americanization takes on the form of a forced
acculturation, it becomes a cultural diversity issue. That is how Lawrence Levine describes what happens when children from the many ethnic groups go through American
Conceptual Preparation | 13
public schools and come out “as Anglo boys and girls.” Americanization could also be
seen as a way of transforming or changing things to make them uniquely American.
Actually, there are three paths toward Americanization, namely (1) social
Americanization—the Americanization of people, (2) cultural Americanization—
the Americanization of behavior or habits, and (3) creative Americanization—the
Americanization of things. We shall discuss the third type (creative Americanization)
in Part III of this book. The first and the second types are symbiotic, and it is better to
treat them together as social and cultural Americanization. In the United States, social
and cultural Americanization is a way to orient people toward Anglo American cultural
ideals and social behaviors. The U.S. government made this kind of Americanization
a national mandate massive immigration during the period of massive immigration
(1880 and 1914). It is achieved through educational institutions. As more and more
immigrants came from southern and eastern European countries, Americanization
became a way to maintain the established standards of western European thought.
Western civilization became a part of the intellectual development of American students
at all levels. This led to the importance of courses concerning Western civilization in
American higher education systems. The Federal Bureau of Education and the Federal
Bureau of Naturalization supported these kinds of Americanization groups.
As would be expected, when members of one ethnic group constantly use their own
ethnicity as the yardstick by which other American ethnic groups must be measured,
problems are bound to arise. This was the case when the Anglo-Saxon Protestant
Americans denied their fellow European Christians of the Catholic faith opportunities
to get jobs and advancements. Much of the apprehension against German and Irish
Catholics in the early part of nation building was caused by ethnocentrism on the
part of the English Americans. In addition, ethnocentrism caused white Americans
from western Europe to discriminate against Black Americans from Africa and the
indigenous peoples of North America—the Native Americans. Until recently, the idea
of Western civilization was used both to unite white Americans and to acculturate other
ethnic groups. White and European ethnocentrism continue to lead some Americans
to deny other nonwhite American citizens the opportunity to get the essential
experiences they need.
Ethnic Identity and Ethnicity
Since the late 1960s, especially following the civil rights movement, most Americans
have started asserting their ethnicities by placing more importance on understanding
the sources of their group identities and community traditions as well as the heritages
of other ethnic groups. In the process, individuals are beginning to understand the
essential differences that really make American society and culture very complex.
As people from different cultural backgrounds creatively maintain their essential
differences in language, religion or belief, value systems, and community traditions,
their intercultural understanding and multicultural exchange tend to increase.
14 | Creative Americanization
The ethnic group into which we belong by birth or marriage remains the most
continuous in-group affiliation. One’s ethnicity is the most lasting cultural group to
which anyone can belong, It is made up of people with similar backgrounds in terms
of primordial place or nation, language, religion, accumulated conventions of daily
life, customary practices, values, and belief systems. While it is possible for people to
move in and out of other social identities—age, associational or voluntary groups, and
class it is not quite so with ethnicity. To illustrate this point, let’s look at an example.
The possibility of an individual moving between economic classes constitutes one of
the primary aspects of the American dream. The reality of this actually happening is
remote. but the possibility still exists. Therefore, a person who is born into poverty
can advance their position to that of middle class or upper class. On the other hand,
someone who is born an African American, Latino, or any other ethnicity will remain
a member of their ethnic group for their entire life. One’s ethnicity is a part of one’s
essential difference—the difference that makes a difference.
Anticipating differences that make a difference in the lives of Americans can help
keep the Union alive, regardless of challenges and unresolved conflicts. Americans
always find ways to retain aspects of their own original ethnic cultures, which in turn
increases the options and choices available to other Americans. This is the essence of
what I call the culture of diversity. Americans can never come to the point when they
will no longer selectively appropriate and incorporate America’s multicultural heritages;
for it is by doing so that Americans multiply the variety that already exists. Such is the
emergent quality of the culture of diversity in the United States.
Intellectual Assumptions or Hypotheses
Based upon what has been discussed so far, the following may sound like we are
belaboring the obvious. However, they should be seen as highly probable intellectual
assumptions based upon observable facts. You can use them as hypotheses for studying
the dynamics of ethnic diversity and common nationality in the United States.
The Doctrine of Discovery led to the first effective establishment of Spanish, French,
and English settlements in part of the New World that became the United States of
America. There are numerous indigenous peoples in North America, and this has been
the case since before the arrival and effective settlement of this vast hemisphere by the
Europeans (Spanish, French, and English) and Africans. The net effect of the Doctrine
of Discovery and the first effective settlements is that the United States has become a
land of vast ethnic diversity. The European languages, religious affiliations, and community traditions of the pioneer Spanish, French, and English settlers, along with those
of Native Americans and enslaved African Americans, laid the foundation of ethnic
and cultural diversity in the United States.
The British, Scottish, and Irish people, as well as Germanic-speaking peoples,
became citizens of one indivisible nation, or Union, as their former settlements or
Conceptual Preparation | 15
territories in North America became integral parts of the United States. The concept
of bringing these diverse groups into the Union gives Americans of diverse regions
and ethnicities a sense of identity and connectedness. Every American ought to be able
to say, in the worlds of David T. Abalos, “We need each other in order to be fully who
we are in our individuality and fully who we are in our common humanity”(p. 77).
Americans of diverse ethnicities, states, and regions ought to know that they are “the
individual members who constitute the body politic and each valued in their uniqueness without giving up the right to be critical of each other.” Peoples of diverse national
origins become citizens of one nation and share a sense of common nationality in the
United States. Every American ethnic group ought to have both a sense of their ethnic
identity and a sense of their relatedness with members of other ethnicities who are as
American as they are.
Americans are a people who although they could trace their ancestral origins to many
different nations of the world, have become citizens of one nation. The Latin phrase,
E Pluribus Unum (Out of Many One) was once used to articulate this idea as the moral
center that held together the United States as a nation. The average American undergraduate should understand E Pluribus Unum as articulating the fact that the United
States is the union of many states. America has many regions, states, and territories, but
remains one independent polity with a national constitution for its citizens. In other
words, the United States of America is a land of amalgamated states and a union of an
integrated people.
America is strongest when Americans put the Union first and work together as a
united people. The strength of the Union was tested during the Civil War, when first,
generation Americans of various ethnic backgrounds particularly the Irish Americans
(some of them were a degree away from the status of indentured servants), African
Americans (not far from the chains of Southern servitude), Germans (without any other
single nation they could call their own until 1871), and thousands upon thousands of
their native-born Americans all put America first and saved the Union. They responded
to the call to keep the Union alive and served in the Union Army to fight the war.
The Union therefore represents the state of being united.
Today, people become Americans by being born in the United States and through
the principles of naturalization. Naturalization is the gradual legal process of assimilation or becoming an American. If immigrants stay long enough in America and mingle
and interact with people of different classes and cultural backgrounds, they get jobs in
American workplaces and join clubs and organizations. Most Immigrants move through
immigrant statuses—visitors, permanent residents, to naturalized citizens. Although
the purpose of naturalization is social integration the process, acculturation simultaneously takes place as one is being assimilated. As they pick and choose from America’s
multicultural heritages, they are culturally becoming more and more American. Some,
by eager acceptance, rapidly change to American ways and consciously Americanize
part of their old world cultures to suit the American environment. Acculturation is
actually a form of cultural transformation that every new immigrant undergoes as
they imbibe the American ways in order to function effectively in the United States. It
16 | Creative Americanization
takes place inside and outside of one’s own ethnic community. Most immigrants find it
easier at the beginning to learn from those who had come before them. Those who can
usually like to live where those who came from their countries live. New immigrants
learn from members of their ethnic groups who share similar ancestries and community traditions, or similar historical circumstances and social conditions in the greater
American experience. After going through rigorous immigration and naturalization
processes and ultimately becoming Americans, people end up living in multiethnic and
multicultural communities.
Get Maps, Tables, Pictures, Census Data, and Educational Videos
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Environment
Language (include radio stations, place names, etc.)
Religion
Occupations
Social (gender, race, age, class, ethnic)
Immigration and Settlement Patterns
Customs
Persistent Issues of Ethnic Diversity and
Common Nationality in the United States
The following are some of the persistent issues of ethnic diversity that must not be
overlooked:
Nativism is a term that has to do with the place of birth or nativity, not with the
primordial home. Nativism usually arises out of legitimate concerns among
American-born citizens for the United States, concerning the possibility that
immigrants might jeopardize their jobs, crowd their schools, and reduce their standard
of living. In the spirit of nativism, some Americans discriminate against and become
hostile to immigrants and naturalized citizens. Nativism becomes a troublesome issue
when it leads American-born citizens to consider themselves more American than
naturalized citizens to the point of denying the latter employment opportunities and
social services.
Ethnocentrism refers to the tendency on the part of one ethnic group to use their
ethnicity as the yardstick by which to judge other ethnic groups. It can lead members
of one ethnic group to think that they are superior to other groups and cause those
other groups to feel less American. Ethnocentrism can lead to the forced acculturation
of minority groups to the dominant (and supposedly superior) group. Much of the
apprehension against Germans and the Irish Catholics in the early part of American
nation building was caused by ethnocentrism on the part of the English Americans.
Ethnocentrism continues to lead some English-speaking Euro-Americans to judge the
Conceptual Preparation | 17
No.
%
Social/Ethnic Sources
Remarks
54.4
Native-born Americans of
British ancestry
From England, Scotland, and
Wales
516,000
23.4
Germans
About 216,000 of them were born
in Germany
210,000
9.5
African Americans
About half were escaped slaves
from the South and the rest were
freedmen in the North
200,00
9.1
Irish Americans
90,000
4.1
Dutch Americans
50,000
2.3
English Americans
First generation
40.000
1.8
French Americans
About half of them from Canada
20,000
0.9
Scandinavian Americans
Swedish, etc.
7,000
Italian Americans
7,000
European Jewish Americans
6,000
Mexican Americans
5,000
Polish Americans
4,000
Native Americans
Table 1: Breakdown of the approximately 2.2 million Union soldiers
dialects and speech patterns of immigrants, even those from other English-speaking
countries, by Anglo American standards. Those who do not speak like the dominant
group are sometimes ostracized, viewed with prejudice, stereotyped, and, worst of all,
marginalized by racism.
Racism is the act of differentiating a group of people as different or other based on
skin color or physical appearance and placing negative stereotypes on those groups. One
of the most recognizable examples of racism is the case of African American slaves in
the United States. Due to their skin color and the fact that they were of African descent,
this large body of the American population was singled out and subjected to chattel
slavery in antebellum America. After their emancipation, during the Reconstruction
era, African Americans faced severe and humiliating segregation in the form of
Jim Crow laws. Today, African Americans continue to face constant threats. They experience stereotyping, and face the absence of justice due to the persistent racism in the
United States. It should be noted that as a classificatory term, “race” is based on observable physical characteristics broadly associated with people from different continents,
regions, and places in the world. Traditionally, scholars have identified three races: (1)
Negroid, (2) Mongoloid, and (3) Caucasoid. However, there is recent acceptance of a
single race, the human race, and the traditional classifications of race have no biological
basis.
18 | Creative Americanization
Discrimination is self-explanatory. What is important is that every social group
(gender, race, age, class, or ethnic) faces some kind of discrimination. (I would
probably expand this paragraph out. It just looks a little uneven with the other
paragraphs.)
Conceptual Preparation | 19