A THEOLOGY OF ENHANCEMENT: MULTICULTURALITY IN SELF AND COMMUNITY

Abstract

Introduction The United States is a multicultural, multiethnic, and multiracial society, consisting of peoples from all over the world. In spite of considerable efforts to live harmoniously, we have experienced great racial and ethnic tensions. The Los Angeles eruptions in 1992 showed a crisis in our ethnic and racial relations. In such a society of racial tensions, what does it mean to pursue multiculturality ? To have appropriate interracial relations, sociologists have thus far provided several major sociological theories: assimilation, amalgamation, and cultural pluralism. The assimilation model underscores the unilateral integration of all diverse ethnic groups into Anglo-American culture. This system allows acculturation, but not structural assimilation that would involve sharing of socio-political and economic power. It is clearly a hierarchical view, driving our society toward uniformity. The melting pot (amalgamation) theory has stressed the oneness of American society by obtaining a new identity through intermixing, while we lose our old ethnic identities in this new world. At the turn of the century, the idea of the melting pot theory was discussed, since most immigrants came from Europe. Presently, the idea of cultural pluralism prevails in society along with the view of assimilation. In theory, it espouses a society of diversity in unity and unity in diversity. In actuality, this model, however, has fostered the separation and isolation of ethnic groups without unity. In addition, this model suggests that we accept all ethnic cultures as they are in the name of diversity. In Beyond the Melting Pot (1963), Nathan Glazer and Daniel Patrick Moynihan attempted to complement the theory of cultural pluralism with the idea of the assimilation model. Their new ethnicity theory holds that an Irish person becomes an Irish-American and an Italian becomes an Italian-American in this country. They conclude that each ethnic, racial, and religious group blends into American society at different speeds, forming their new identities, while keeping their own ethnic distinctiveness in spite of their assimilation into the society. Their theory, however, expects a diminishing role for ethnic differences.