Multicultural California

Multiculturalism relates to communities containing multiple cultures. As a descriptive term, it usually refers to the simple fact of cultural diversity: it is general applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, sometime at the organizational level, for examples, schools, businesses, neighborhoods, cities, or nations. As a normative term, it refers to ideologies or policies that promote this diversity or its institutionalization; in this sense, multiculturalism is a society “at ease with the rich tapestry of human life and the desire amongst people to express their own identity in the manner they see fit” (Wiki). In the movie Crash by Paul Haggis, Los Angeles citizens with vastly separate lives collide in interweaving stories of race, loss and redemption. Inside the movie, there are some scenes that we might have been facing before. In a multicultural world, people of different races, from different countries, and with different aspects, their lives are being changed by other characters inside the film. In the book American Son, Brian Ascalon Roley writes about a story of two brothers, Tomas and Gabe. Roley uses this book as a reference to the multicultural world. And also in the play Culture Clash in America: Bordertown, Culture Clash explores the San Diego-Tijuana through satire and humor. San Diego-Tijuana is an area where many Mexicans or Americans make contact. And besides American and Mexican, there are also some interviews of different people from other countries. These three pieces of media show how a multicultural world looks like. Moreover, these pieces also relates to the recent California. In these pieces, those characters show some ways to live in a multicultural world in harmony.       Paul Haggis, the writer- director of the movie Crash, demonstrate the relations between different races in Los Angeles into a drama. The story occurred in just two days. Several character interweave during this period in Los Angeles. Everyone has their own story, but at the same time, one own story affects the others’. Haggis shows the difficulties of adapting to a multicultural world like California. No one has a clear understanding of the people from different backgrounds and this is the reason why there are racism or discrimination issues in the world. Since people do not have clear understanding on others, they reject those who are different from them, such as different skin colors or races. Inside the movie, there are different types of people, and they have different reactions when they interact to other people. When one do not have much information on others, he/she will not act too friendly to you, or even worse. However, when everyone gets to know more about each another, things are different. In a multicultural society, there is still humanity. John Ryan, a police officer of LAPD, was a racist. One time when he was patrolling with his partner Tom Hanson, pulled over Cameron’s car and ordered the Thayer couple, who are colored, to exit the car. At that time, John sexual molested Christine and Cameron said nothing. Until the end of the film, when Christine was in a car accident and was dying because of the fire from the gas leakage, John was the first to climb into the car and tried to save her life. John represents a dominant culture and his act is to pressure those minorities, just because he is white and he has the privilege in the society. However, it is not the image of multiculturalism. Because of his fault, he realized that being a racist did not bring any advantage to him. And at his last scene, he saved a life, no matter who the person is, he did his responsibility. It shows the original personality which every human should have is to help others out.      In American Son, Roley talks about the story of two Filipino brothers adrift in contemporary California. The writer use the point of view of the younger brother Gabe, telling us the story that how people struggle to assimilate the dominant lifestyle. His brother Tomas, always dressed up in Mexican style and trained attack dogs, which he sell them to those celebrities in the Hollywood. The message that Roley wants to tell the readers is the multicultural society that force people to assimilate to the dominant culture, this lead to greater social problems and identity crisis among individuals. Tomas’s character is a metaphor for the white’s culture dominance in the world. Throughout the book, Tomas is always the one in charge, forcing his brother Gabe to follow his footstep and always taking others’ advantages. But whatever Tomas does, no one support him. Gabe act as a little amount of peoples who stand up to strive the dominance, however, each time they strive, they are pressed down even harder. Ika represents those voiceless groups of people. They are smart but they have no chances to express their thoughts because no one listens. And soon they have admitted their identity in the society and become voiceless. These three characters reflect the recent multicultural society.      Bordertown is a play that consists of many stories about multiculturalism. The play is a satire of two cities – San Diego and Tijuana, which straddle the border between the United States and Mexico. People living along this area are living in the multicultural society. But, their own culture has their own particular value. It leads to misconceptions among them and the interactions between the residents living in the area. In Act 1 and Act 2, two different sides have different interactions at first when they meet the people from different cultures. In the beginning scene, two Mexican-Americans portrayed in “Bordertown” are mistaken as Mexicans trying to illegally cross the American border. This is a clear example of stereotype of racism on someone’s ethnicity and skin color. Since Mexican-American are legal citizens in the United States, yet some of them are discriminated against and punished because they looked like illegal immigrants that cross the American border illegally. I think it is nothing wrong to be alarmed about illegal immigrants, but the act of wrongly accusing Mexican-American is no longer an immigration issue but a racism issue and it should be concerned in recent society.            California is an example of multicultural world. And from the readings and the movie, we can see how multiculturalism affects California. In the good side, multiculturalism brings the opportunity for people to know different culture and countries. In addition, multiculturalism provides the opportunity for people from different culture to help each other. In Crash, we understand that each story can change the others. The good side we found here could also found in the recent California. There are many people from different countries living together in and each of them would be happy to help each other when need. Multiculturalism also boosts the development of California. During the Gold Rush in 1850s, more and more people migrated into the state. Those people came from different countries with different dreams. They “crashed” into the California society, and they developed the modern California. California has large amount of its population in diversity among other states in the United States and its economy is large enough to be comparable to that of the largest of countries. And this is the success of multiculturalism that benefits California to have its development and provide lots of opportunities to immigrants. As Jewelle Taylor Gibbs and Teiahsha Bankhead write in their article “Coming to California,” they conclude the good side of multicultural California. “This California mosaic of racially diverse people, ethnic cultures, and polyglot languages generates the energy that drives the expanding economy, creates the excitement that nurtures the creative arts, and provides the vision that fosters innovation in fields…” I agree California society is just like a piece of mosaic and different peoples are trying to put their own pieces in this mosaic. No matter what is their background, California provides an opportunity for them to chase their own dream.      However, the bad side has greater issues and effects than the good side. All of the sources point out the problem of racism and misconceptions inside the state. There exist racism and discrimination problems all over the world. Specifically, these problems are serious issues in California, according to Crash and America Son. Inside the movie Crash, white people did not want to understand what others people were thinking, they felt that they were more powerful among races. And those black peoples were not motivated to think of other immigrants. In the article “What is Multiculturalism,” Professor Gregory Jay from University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee points out the misconception of American on multiculturalism, “America’s traditional conception of itself as a “melting pot”: of diverse peoples joined in a common New World culture has been challenged by those multiculturalists who consider the “melting pot” metaphor a cover for oppressive assimilation.” Everyone heard of the “melting pot” concept. But Professor Jay points out that multiculturalism does not mean we have to follow others’ footsteps, but to use our own original culture to influence others to bring a harmony effect in the society. In America Son, the Filipino brothers were a metaphor to the relationship between White people and people of other races in the society. Tomas was always in charge of everything and he forced others to follow his footsteps. He also took advantages from others. The relationship between Tomas and Gabe was addressed to another racial problem existed in recent California. There were some groups of people took some advantages from others and they could only suffer and do nothing about it. This is an injustice relationship. In fact, white people have more privilege than the others in the United States. According to the United States’ Naturalization Act of 1789, it declared that only “white” immigrants could eventually become citizens. This shows discriminations to other races. Obviously this act failed to provide a vision of which they feel they want to belong.      Besides racism and discriminations, in both the readings and the movie address the problem of communication between races. In America Son, Ika represented the group of people who were smart but had no chances to express their thought and own values. The same values appeared in Bordertown and Crash. In Bordertown, in the San Diego-Tijuana area, there are different stories. People in different cultures hold different values. However, without sufficient communications, it always leads to misconceptions. Just like when the American Militia Man stopped the two Mexican-American and challenged their identity, just because one of the Mexican-American’s appearance. Although the characters had chance to express their feeling on multiculturalism, they sometimes misunderstood others. In recent California, there always happen cases due to miscommunication and holds of different values. Some mother-in-law sues their daughter-in-law, who came from different country, by some misunderstanding argument. This shows that in a multicultural society, when people hold different values, argument happens easily, but if they get to communicate to each other more, arguments will not exist.     Problems in a multicultural California do not solve easily. However, there are some ways to tackle the problem. For the education, we should teach the equality of each person in the society in school. According to Peggy McIntosh wrote in “White Privilege”, “Most talk by whites about equal opportunity seems to me now to be about equal opportunity to try to get into a position of dominance while denying that systems of dominance exist.” This is not the true meaning of equal opportunities. And we should not be the one who are dominant. Only God is at the position of dominance. If we are changing our attitude on other races, at least by learning about their values, this should ease the racism problem. Besides education, it is also important to let everyone communicate to others, to know what others are thinking, and learn about their cultures. From the readings, we found that most problems we found in the materials could address to recent California problems. In recent California, we could see that racism and misconception exists everywhere because California is a multicultural society. However, people who living in the situation would find their way to live in harmony.