The Paradox Of Multiculturalism In The United States-Equality And Discrimination

The United States is an immigrant country. A great number of immigrants from all over the world arrived in America since the colonial period. When people around the world have rushed to the United States in great numbers, they have not only brought their identity as minority ethnic and racial groups, but also brought their different cultural traditions, causing American culture to be diversified day by day.After the Anglo-conformity and the"melting pot"theory, due to the wakening of self-awareness of the ethnic groups, various appeals appeared. Therefore, multiculturalism emerged in the United States during the 1960s. Multiculturalism was put forward as a progressive immigration theory, and aimed to solve social problems caused by immigration. Multiculturalism gained its impetus in a series of social movements, especially the Civil Rights Movement. Thereafter, it became the focus of attention in the United States.Many academic articles on multiculturalism in the United States have been published in Chinese scholarly journals since 1990s. Scholars in the mainland China began with the introduction of the notion from western publications. With the devotion to the research, they have done a marvelous job on this subject in recent years, giving birth to some broader and more profound research results. However, most of the articles or theses mainly deal with its origin, the arguments for or against it and its limitations, and so on. None has focused on the unique feature of multiculturalism—paradox. With the scholar's research results, the introduction of foreign resources and the importation of foreign works as bases, this paper makes a further analysis of multiculturalism and points out that there exists paradox in multiculturalism in the United States. The essence of multiculturalism in the United States is equality among ethnic groups and the mainstream culture. However, ethnic groups suffer from discrimination rather than getting equality in reality.The thesis comprises four parts. The first part is the introduction, in which the research, both abroad and domestic, on multiculturalism and the content of the thesis are briefly introduced. The first chapter reviews the relevant research theories. At first, the background of multiculturalism is introduced, and then the essence of multiculturalism—equality—is pointed out. The second chapter is the main part of the thesis. Chapter two focuses on the paradox of multiculturalism, taking African Americans as a case study object. Apparent equality is represented from educational and political perspectives. Discrimination is embodied in housing and employment. The conclusion part summarizes the whole paper with the merits and limitations of the research process and makes a possible predication of the future research of multiculturalism.