Why are culture and identity such contested terrain in contemporary America?

When considering American coating and identity, one could argue that there is no such thing, since contemporary America is home to a heathen and ethnic mix so great that it cannot be considered as a whole; alternatively, American culture and Identity may be seen as an amalgam of social and cultural differences from the numerous ethnic groups that inhabit this great continent. These two opposing ideas, of a salad bowl (the former) and a melting pot (the latter) provide us with the dominant models of American Society and the primary(prenominal) source of dissent. A third, less(prenominal) well known idea is that neither of these models efficaciously represents the nasty balance between commonality and renewal precisely that a combination of the two is where the truth lies, in that the multiculturalism and ethnic diversity of the salad bowl allows the divergent ethnic groups freedom to rent and affirm their identities with a concomitant amalgam of core set and beliefs follow ed by the whole. The two primary reasons for the tension between the main conceptions of American identity ar history and forefinger, or how the so-called American identity was formed in the first regularise and how power in its objet darty forms, i.e., political, social, religious and economic has influenced the faulting debate on whom, or what makes an American. Moreover, power in the coupled States has, historically been predicated on wake and nationality, giving rise to great tensions over the question of culture and identity for the American people. Crevecoeur, in 1782, wrote of a nation where individuals are melted into a crude race of man (Maidment and Mitchell, (eds.) 2000, 19) besides that new race of man was to be determined by the Anglo-dominated culture that developed with the first, English, settlers. altogether the institutions of power and control were set... If you take to get a integral essay, order it on our website: BestEssayCheap.com

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