American Multiculturalism After 9/11

American Studies Rubin | Verheul (eds.) | Verheul Rubin This groundbreaking volume explores the multicultural debate that has evolved in the United Studies American States and Europe since the cataclysmic events of 9/11. Instead of suggesting closure by presen- ting a unifi ed narrative about cultural diversity, national identity, and social stratifi cation, the essays in this well-balanced collection present a variety of perspectives, each highlighting the undiminished relevance of key issues such as immigration, assimilation, and citizenship, while also pointing to unresolved confl icts over universalism, religion, and tolerance. Most importantly, this volume shows that the struggle over multiculturalism is not limited to the political domain, but also has profound cultural implications. American Multiculturalism after 9/11: Transatlantic Perspectives is an invaluable, thought-provoking addition to the debate about multiculturalism as central to the study of the United States in a global context. American Multiculturalism after 9/11 Multiculturalism American Derek Rubin lectures in the American Studies Program at Utrecht University. Jaap Verheul is associate professor of history and director of the American Studies Program at Utrecht University. These lively essays illuminate the ways in which multiculturalist initiatives in the United States and Europe have infl uenced one another with a variety of productive as well as unproductive effects, especially since the events of 9/11. The authors vindicate the promise of American Studies as a scholarly domain in which the trend from a preoccupation with “identity” to a concern for “solidarity” can be charted and critically interrogated. David A. Hollinger, author of Postethnic America: Beyond Multiculturalism The thirteen new essays assembled in this book make many fresh and often surprising contributions to understanding the theoretical issues surrounding multiculturalism, the effects of the terrorist attacks of 2001 on debates about American ethnic diversity and national unity, and European and transatlantic perspectives on migration and religious difference. Derek Rubin and Jaap Verheul (eds.) Werner Sollors, author of Beyond Ethnicity: Consent and Descent in American Culture and co-editor of A New Literary History of America American Multiculturalism after 9/11 is a timely and extremely important intervention in and reconfi guration of the debates over multiculturalism that took place after 9/11 on both sides of the Atlantic. Donald E. Pease, co-editor of Cultures of American Imperialism and The Futures of American Studies American Multiculturalism after 9/11 Transatlantic Perspectives www.aup.nl A U P A U P American Multiculturalism after 9/11 New Debates in American Studies New Debates in American Studies presents thematic essay collections that articulate new directions in American Studies, explore new approaches and areas of research, and infuse the current scholarly debate with innovative methodolo- gies and theoretical concepts. New Debates in American Studies is part of the Amsterdam University Press series in American Studies, which publishes monographs and edited volumes on American history, society, politics, and culture. The series is a forum for groundbreaking approaches and areas of research, as well as pioneering scho- larship that adds new insights into relatively established fields in the study of America. Series Editors: Derek Rubin and Jaap Verheul, Utrecht University American Multiculturalism after 9/11 Transatlantic Perspectives Derek Rubin and Jaap Verheul Amsterdam University Press The editors gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), the Netherlands American Studies Asso- ciation (NASA), and the Research Institute for Culture and History (OGC) of the Faculty of Humanities at Utrecht University. They also wish to thank Anne-Lieke Struijk, who graciously performed the demanding and time-consuming task of preparing the index. Cover illustration: Daniel Hulshizer/AP/Reporters Cover: Neon, design and communications, Sabine Mannell, Amsterdam Design: JAPES, Amsterdam ISBN 978 90 8964 144 1 e-ISBN 978 90 4851 075 7 NUR 686/763 © Derek Rubin and Jaap Verheul / Amsterdam University Press, 2009 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Table of contents Derek Rubin and Jaap Verheul Introduction 7 Multicultural Boundary Crossings Paul Lauter Multiculturalism and Immigration 23 Richard Alba Native-Immigrant Boundaries and Ethnic and Racial Inequalities 35 Ed Jonker Coherence, Difference, and Citizenship: A Genealogy of Multiculturalism 51 Cultural Reflections of the Unthinkable Rob Kroes Indecent Exposure: Picturing the Horror of 9/11 67 Phillip E. Wegner “The Dead Are Our Redeemers”: Culture, Belief, and United 93 81 Michan Andrew Connor Real American Heroes: Attacking Multiculturalism through the Discourse of Heroic Sacrifice 93 Mathilde Roza “America under Attack”: Unity and Division after 9/11 105 John-Paul Colgan “This Godless Democracy”: Terrorism, Multiculturalism, and American Self-Criticism in John Updike 119 Rachel Hutchins-Viroux Multiculturalism in American History Textbooks before and after 9/11 133 5 Transatlantic Dialogues Patrick Hyder Patterson A Kinder, Gentler Europe? Islam, Christianity, and the Divergent Multiculturalisms of the New West 147 Johanna C. Kardux Slavery, Memory, and Citizenship in Transatlantic Perspective 165 Jaap Kooijman Are We All Americans? 9/11 and Discourses of Multiculturalism in the Netherlands 181 Jaap Verheul “How could this have happened in Holland?” American Perceptions of Dutch Multiculturalism after 9/11 191 About the Contributors 207 Index 213 Introduction Derek Rubin and Jaap Verheul Within a month after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Lynne Cheney, the wife of the Vice-President and former chairwoman of the National Endow- ment for the Humanities, publicly attacked educators who had sought to promote multicultural teaching and internationalism as a response to rising anti-Ameri- canism. The notion that Americans needed to learn more about other cultures in the world, she argued, was tantamount to admitting “that the events of Septem- ber 11th were our fault, that it was our failure to understand Islam that led to so many deaths and so much destruction.” Instead of teaching diversity and tolerance, teachers from kindergarten to the top colleges and universities would do better to concentrate on the classics of world history and, most of all, the history of the American nation. The best way to understand the world in a time of national crisis, she concluded, was to read Of Plymouth Plantation, the writings of the founding fathers, or the heroic accounts of American soldiers during World War II by Stephen Ambrose.1 By unapologetically promoting national history and patriotism over diversity and tolerance, Cheney advanced her long-standing agenda to steer the national curriculum clear of multiculturalism. Her decision to assail what she called the “multicultural argument” in the wake of this national disaster also made clear that the ongoing debate over multiculturalism, diversity, and national identity was more alive than ever, as Americans struggled to make sense of “9/11.” It has been debated whether this ominous date was a decisive turning point in American and global history, or should be understood rather in the context of long-term national and international developments and tensions.2 It certainly is true that the American War on Terror, the invasion of Iraq, and the ensuing debate about civil liberties for which Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay became contested sym- bols opened a new chapter in a long history of constitutional interpretation. More importantly, the terrorist attacks by radical Muslims of foreign origin led Ameri- cans to recast their perceptions of diversity and assimilation within a national framework, and at the same time to reevaluate the position of the United States in the world. Cheney’s remarks are illustrative of several themes that are central to this volume. Her combative accusation unambiguously reminds us of the highly contro- versial and contingent nature of multiculturalism, a concept that can be said to 7 have developed in dialectical opposition to competing perspectives on citizenship and plurality in Western society. The battle was still going on, she seemed to say. Yet at the same time her argument made clear that both combatants and battle- field had significantly changed after 9/11. The way she associated multiculturalism with the understanding of Islam and a failure to “encourage the study of our past” in the context of Western civilization suggested a global perspective that was new to the debate about cultural diversity. Both in the United States and Western Europe, the term multiculturalism now became enlisted in the political and academic discourses about the presence of Muslims within Western socie- ties.3 Since this happened in different ways on the two sides of the Atlantic, while both trajectories retained many common elements and dialogical moments, it is well worth studying these changing approaches to multiculturalism from a transatlantic perspective. Multiple

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