: Battleground or Meeting Ground?

Ronald Takaki

"It is very natural that the history written by the victim does not altogether chime with the story of the victor'" Iosi Ferndndez of California, 1874'

importance ot In 1979,I experienced the truth of this state- tries should not diminish the in- ment when I found myself attacked by C' what happened here. Balance should also denial or a ten- Vann Woodward in the New York Review of sist that we steer away from Woodward's contrast Books.I had recently published a broad and dency to be dismissive. and the "horrors comparative study of blacks, Chinese, Indi- of the "millions of corpses" Nazi Germany to racial vio- ans, irish, and Mexicans' from the American of genocide" in both heart- Revolution to the U.S. war against Spain. But' lenie in the seemed Africans for Woodward, my lron Cages: Race and CUI' less and beside the point. Enslaved South would have felt little ture in Nineteenth-Century America was too in the American for narrow in focus. My analysis' he stridently comfort to have been told that conditions should have compared ethnic their counterparts in Latin America were complained, it .onfli.ts in the United States to those in "worse." They would have responded that black population in BrazTl, South Africa, Germany, and Russia' mattered little that the than"l27.6 Such an encompassing view would have Brazil was "17.5 million" rather whether slavery beyond shown that America was not so "bad" after all' million" by 1850, or "three-mile limit" The author of scholarship that focused ex- whatWoodward called the and deadlY' clusively on the American South, Woodward was more terrible from was arguing that mine should have been What had provoked such a scolding One might cross-national in order to be "balanced." But this dean of American history? how I wondered, was balance to be mea- have expected a more supportive reading The Strange Career of sured? Surely, any examination of the "worse from the author of lim stir our soci- instances" ofracial oppression in other coun- Crow, a book that had helped

What Is Multicultural Americq? 481 general and Amer- ety's moral conscience during the civil rights know about the world in is the issue Allan BIoom era. My colleague Michael Rogin tried to ex- ica in particular. This plain Woodward's curious reaction by saying raises in his polemic, The Closing of the Amer - ihat the elderly historian perceived me as a ican Mind. A leader of the intellectual back- he articulates a bad son. History had traditionally been writ- lash against cultural diversity, curricu- ten by members of the majority population; conservative view of the university students now some younger scholars of color like me lum. According to Bloom, entering have re- had received our Ph.D.'s and were trying to are "uncivilized," and faculty the "re-vision" America's past' But our critical sponsibility to "civilize" them' As a teacher, "hungers" are scholarship did not chime with the tradi- hi claims to know what their tional version of history. Noting my and "what they can digest." Eating is one of "large nonwhiteness, Woodward charged that I was his favorite metaphors. Noting the he re- guilty of reverse discrimination: my charac- black presence" at major universities, ierization of whites in terms of rapacity, grets the "one failure" in race rela- to be "in- greed, and brutality constituted a "practice" iions-black students have proven "melt as have all ihat could be described as "." Like a fa- digestible." They do not ther, Woodward chastised me for catering to other groups." The problem, he contends, is the "current mood of self-denigration and that "blacks have become blacks": they have self-flagellation." "If and when the mood become "ethnic." This separatism has been permissiveness passes," he lamented, "one would hope a more reinforced by an academic "Black balanced perspective on American history that has befouled the curriculum with "Learn will orevail."2 Studies" along with Another Culture-" is "the good Looking back at Woodward's review today, The only solution, Bloom insists, we can see that it constituted one of the open- old Great Books aPProach."a ing skirmishes of what has come to be called Behind Bloom's approach is a political the culture war. Some of the battles of this agenda. What does it mean to be an Ameri- "by conflict have erupted in the political arena' can? he asks. The "old view" was that rec- Speaking before the 1992 Republican Na- ognizing and accepting man's natural rights"' ti,onal Convention, Patrick Buchanan urged people in this society found a fundamental and his fellow conservatives to take back their cit- Lasii of unity. The immigrant came here "recent educa- ies, their culture, and their country, block by became assimilated. But the block. This last phrase was a reference to the tion of openness," with its celebration of di National Guard's show of force during the versity, is threatening the social contract that \992Los Angeles riot. On the other hand, in had defined the members of American soci- rights his first speech as President-elect, Bill Clinton ety as individuals. During the civil recognized our ethnic and cultural diversity movement of the 1960s, Black Power mili- a group iden- as a source of America's strength. tants had aggressively affirmed But many of the fiercest battles over how tity. Invading college campuses' they de- we define America are being waged within manded "respect for blacks as blacks, not as "propa- the academy. There minority students and human beings simply,'and began to This scholars are struggling to diversifythe curric- gandize acceptance of different ways." ulum, while conservative pundits like emphasis on ethnicity separated Americans "essential Charles J. Sykes and Dinesh D'Souza are from each other, shrouding their fighting to recapture the camPus.l humankindness." The black conception of a The stakes in this conflict are high, for we group identity provided the theoretical basis are being asked to define education and de- for a new policy, affirmative action, which termine what an educated person should opened the doors to the admission of un-

482 Multicuburalism in the United States qualified students. Once on campus, many about Koreans, and Hispanics about blacks. black students agitated for the establishment Our very diversity offers an intellectual invi- of black studies programs, which in turn con- tation to teachers and scholars to reach for a tributed to academic incoherence, lack of more comprehensive understanding of synopsis, and the "decomposition of the uni- American society. Here the debate over versity."s multiculturalism has gone beyond whether Bloom's is a closed mind, unwilling to al- or not to be inclusive. The question has be- Iow the curriculum to become more inclu- come, How do we develop and teach a more sive. Fortunately, many other educators have culturally diverse curricuiu m? been acknowledging the need to teach stu- What has emerged are two perspectives, dents about the cultural diversity of Ameri- what Diane Ravitch has usefully described as can society. "Every student needs to know," "particularism" versus "pluralism." But, by former University of Wisconsin chancellor regarding each as exclusive, even antagonis- Donna Shalala has explained, "much more tic, Ravitch fails to appreciate the validity of about the origins and history of the particu- both viewpoints and the ways they comple- lar cultures which, as Americans, we will en- ment each other.e counter during our lives."6 Actually, we need not be forced into an ei- This need for cross-cultural understand- ther-or situation. Currently, many universi- ing has been grimly highlighted by recent ra- ties offer courses that study a particular cial tensions and conflicts such as the black group, such as African Americans or Asian boycott of Korean stores, Jewish-black antag- Americans. This focus enables students of a onism in Crown Heights, and especially the specific minority to learn about their history 1992 Los Angeles racial explosion. During and community. These students are not nec- the days of rage, Rodney King pleaded for essarily seeking what has been slandered as "Please, calm: we can get along here. We all self-esteem courses. Rather, they simply be- can get along. I mean, we're all stuck here for a lieve that they are entitled to learn how their while. Let's try to work it out." But how communities fit into American history and "we" should be defined?7 society. My grandparents were fapanese im- Earlier, the Watts riot had reflected a con- migrant laborers, and even after I finished flict between whites and blacks, but the fire college with a major in American history and this time in 1992 Los Angeles highlighted the completed a Ph.D. in this field, I had learned multiracial reality of American society. Race virtually nothing about why they had come includes Hispanics and . to America and what had happened to them The old binary language of race relations be- as well as other fapanese immigrants in this tween whites and blacks, Newsweekobserved, country. This history should have been avail- is no longer descriptive of who we are as able to me. Americans. Our future will increasingly be The particularistic perspective led me to multiethnic as the twenty-first century write Strangers from a Different Shore: A His- rushes toward us: the western edge of the tory of Asian Americans. This focus on a spe- continent called California constitutes the cific group can also be found in Irving thin end of an entering new wedge, a brave Howets Wortd of Our Fathers: The Journey if new multicultural world of Calibans of manv the East European Jews to America, Mario differcnt races and ethnicities.s Garcia's Desert Immigrants: The Mexicans of "we" If must be more inclusive, how do we El Paso, 1880-1920, Lawrence Levine's Black "work it out"? One crucial way would be for Culture qnd Black Consciousne.ss, and Kerby us to learn more about each other-not onlv Miller's Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and thte whites about peoples of color, but also blacks Irish Exodus to North America.to

What Is Multiculntral America? 483 Increasingly, educators and scholars are pluralism, for Ravitch, is to encourage stu- recognizing the need for us to step back from dents of "all racial and ethnic groups to particularistic portraits in order to discern believe that they are part of this society and the rich and complex mosaic of our national that they should develop their talents and pluralism. While group-specific courses have minds to the fullest." By "fullest," she means been in the curriculum for many years, for students to be inspired by learning about courses offering a comparative and ini.gru- "men and women from diverse backgrounds tive approach have been introduced recently. who overcame poverty, discrimination, In fact, the University of California at Berke- physical handicaps, and other obstacles to ley has instituted an American cultures re- achieve success in a variety of fields." Ravitch quirement for graduation. The purpose of is driven by a desire for universalism: she this course is to give students an understand- wants to affirm our common humanity by ing of American society in terms of African discouraging our specific group identitiei, Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos, Native especially those based on racial experiences. Americans, and European Americans, espe- Ironically, Ravitch, a self-avowed proponent cially the immigrant groups from places like of pluralism, actually wants us to abandon Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Russia. our group ties and become individuals.12 What such curricular innovations Drom- This privileging of the "unum" over the ise is not only the introduction of inteilectu- "pluribus" has been advanced more aggres- ally dynamic courses that study the criss- sively by Arthur Schlesinger in The Dis- crossed paths of America's different groups uniting of America. but also the fostering of comparative multi- In this jeremiad, Schlesinger denounces cultural scholarship. This pluralistic ap- what he calls "the cult of ethnicity"-the proach is illustrated by works like my Dtff r- shift from assimilation to group identity, ent Mirror: A History of Multicultural America from integration to separatism. The issue at as well as Gary Nash's Red, White, and Black: stake, he argues, is the teaching of "badhis- ThePeoples of Early America,IvanLight's Eth- tory under whatever ethnic banner." After ac- nic Enterprise in America: Business and Wel- knowledging that American history has long fare among Chinese, lapanese, and Blacks, been written in the "interests of white An- Reginald Horsman's Race qnd Manifest Des- glo-Saxon Protestant males," he describes the tiny: The Origins of American Racial An- enslavement of Africans, the seizure of In- glo-Saxonism, and Benjamin Ringer's "Wethe dian lands, and the exploitation of Chinese People" and Others: Duality and America's railroad workers. But his discussion on racial Treatment of Its Racial Minorities.Il oppression is perfunctory and parsimonious, Even here, however, a battle is being fought and he devotes most of his attention to a de- over how America's diversity should be con- fense of traditional history. "Anglocentric ceptualized. For example, Diane Ravitch av- domination of schoolbooks was based in idly supports the pluralistic perspective, but part on unassailable facts," Schlesinger de- -history she fears national division. Stressing the im- clares. "For better or worse, American portance of national unity, Ravitch promotes has been shaped more than anything else by the development of multiculturalism based British tradition and culture." Like Bloom. on a strategy of adding on: to keep main- Schlesinger utilizes the metaphor of eating. stream Anglo-American history and expand "To deny the essentially European origins of it by simply including information on racism American culture is to falsi$' history," he ex- as well as minority contributions to Amer- plains. "Belief in one's own culture does not ica's music, art, literature, food, clothing, require disdain for other cultures. But one sports, and holidays. The purpose behind this step at a time: no culture can hope to ingest

484 Multiculturalism in the United States other cultures all at once, certainly not before the former Soviet Union, Indonesia, Guyana, it ingests its own." Defensively claiming to and other countries around the world. i'The be an inclusionist historian, Schlesinger pre- ethnic upsurge in America, far from being sents his own credentials: 'As for me, I was for unique, partakes of the global fever." Like a time a member of the executive council of Bloom and Ravitch, Schlesinger prescribes the lournal of Negro History.. . . I have been a individualism as the cure. "MostAmericans," lifelong advocate of civil rights."r3 he argues, "continue to see themselves pri- But what happens when minority peoples marily as individuals and only secondarily try to define their civil rights in terms of cul- and trivially as adherents of a group." The di- tural pluralism and group identities? They viding of society into "fixed ethnicities nour- become targets of Schlesinger's scorn. This ishes a culture of victimization and a conta- "exaggeration" of ethnic differences, he gion of inflammable sensitivities." This danger warns, only "drives ever deeper the awful threatens the "brittle bonds of national iden- wedges between races," leading to an "end- tity that hold this diverse and fractious soci- game" of self-pity and self-ghettoization. The ety together." The Balkan present, Schlesinger culprits responsible for this divisiveness are warns, may be America's prologue.l6 the "multicultural zealots," especially the Are we limited to a choice between a "dis- Afrocentrists. Schlesinger castigates them as uniting" multiculturalism and a common campus bullies, distorting history and creat- American culture, or can we transform the ing myths about the contributions of Afri- "culture war" into a meeting ground? The in- cans.la tellectual combats of this conflict, Gerald What Schlesinger refuses to admit or is un- Graff suggests, have the potential to enrich able to see clearly is how he himself is culpa- American education. As universities become ble of historical distortion: his own omis- contested terrains of different points of view sions in The Age of lackson have erased what gray and monotonous cloisteis oI Eurocen- |ames Madison had described then as "'the tric knowledge can become brave new black race within our bosom"'and "'the red worlds, dynamic and multicultural. On these on our borders."'Both groups have been en- academic battlegrounds, scholars and stu- tirely left out of Schlesinger's study: they do dents can engage each other in dialogue and not even have entries in the index. Moreover, debate, informed by the heat and light gener- there is not even a mention of two marker ated by the examination of opposing texts events, the Nat Turner insurrection and In- such as Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness dian Removal, which Andrew Jackson him- and Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart. self would have been surprised to find omit- "Teaching the conflicts has nothing to do with ted from a history of his era. Unfortunately, relativism or denying the existence of truth," Schlesinger fails to meet even his own stan- Graffcontends. "The best way to make relativ - dards of scholarship: "The historian's goals ists of students is to expose them to an endless are accuracy, analysis, and objectivity in the series of different posiiions which are not d,e- reconstruction of the past."ls bated before their eyes." Graff turns the guns Behind Schlesinger's cant against multi- of the great books against Bloom. By viewing culturalism is fear.'vVhat will happen to our culture as a debate and by entering a process national ideal of "e pluribus unum?" he wor- of intellectual clashes, students can search for ries. Will the center hold, or will the meltins truth, as did Socrates "when he taueht the pot yield to the Tower of Babel? For answers-, conflicts two millennia ago."t7 he looks abroad. "Toduy," he observes, "the Like Graff, I welcome such debates in my nationalist fever encircles the globe." Angry teaching. One of my courses, "Racial In- and violent "tribalism" is exploding in India, equality in America: A Comparative Histori-

What Is Multicubural America? 485 cal Perspective," studies the character of tional disciplines." What distinguishes the American society in relationship to our racial university from other battlegrounds, such as and ethnic diversity. My approach is captured the media and politics, is that the university in the phrase "from different shores." By has a special commitment to the search for "shores," I intend a double meaning. One is knowledge, one based on a process of intel- the shores fromwhich the migrants departed, lectual openness and inquiry. Multicultural- places such as Europe, Africa, and Asia. The ism can stoke this critical spirit by transform- second is the various and often conflicting ing the university into a crucial meeting perspectives or shores from which scholars ground for different viewpoints. In the pro- have viewed the experiences of racial and eth- cess, perhaps we will be able to discover what nic groups. makes us an American people.re By critically examining these different Whether the university can realize this in- shores, students address complex compara- tellectual pursuit for collective self-knowl- tive questions. How have the experiences of edge is uncertain, especially during difficult racial minorities such as African Americans economic times. As institutions of higher been similar to and different from those of learning face budget cuts, calls for an expan- ethnic groups such as Irish Americans? Is race sion of the curriculum often encounter hos- the same as ethnicity? For example, is the Af- tility from faculty in traditional departments rican American experience qualitatively or determined to protect dwindling resources. quantitatively different from the Jewish Furthermore, the economic crisis has been American experience? How have race rela- fanning the fires of racism in society: Asian tions been shaped by economic develop- Americans have been bashed for the seeming ments as well as by culture-moral values invasion of |apanese cars, Hispanics accused about how people think and behave as well as of taking jobs away from Americans, and beliefs about human nature and society? To blacks attacked for their dependency on wel- wrestle with these questions, students read fare and the special privileges of affirmative Nathan Glazer's analysis of assimilationist action. patterns as well as Robert Blauner's theory of This context of rising racial tensions has internal colonialism, Charles Murray on conditioned the culture war. Both the advo- black welfare dependency as well as William cates and the critics of multiculturalism Iulius Wilson on the economic structures know that the conflict is not wholly aca- creating the black underclass, and Thomas demicl the debate over how America should Sowell's explanation of Asian American suc- be defined is related to power and privilege. cess as well as my critique of the "myth of the Both sides agree that history is power. Soci- Asian-American :' r8 ety's collective memory determines the fu- The need to open American minds to ture. The battle is over what should be re- greater cultural diversity will not go away. membered and who should do the Faculty can resist this imperative by ignoring remembering. the changing racial composition of student Traditionally excluded from the curricu- bodies and the larger society, or they can em- lum, minorities are insisting that America brace this timely and exciting intellectual op- does not belong to one group and neither portunity to revitalize the social sciences and does America's history. They are making humanities. "The study of the humanities," their claim to the knowledge offered by the Henry Louis Gates observes, "is the study of university, reminding us that Americans the possibilities of human life in culture. It originated from many lands and that every- thrives on diversity. . . . The new [ethnic stud- one here is entitled to dignity. "I hope this ies] scholarship has invigorated the tradi- survey do a lot of good for Chinese people,"

486 Mubiculturalism in the United States an immigrant told an interviewer from Stan- in advancement, tenure, and honors; they ford in the 1920s. "MakeAmerican people re- found the creation of women's studies not alize that Chinese people are humans.I think just professionally but personally disturbing very few American people really know any- and invasive, a trespasser trampling across thing about Chinese." As different groups their campts." Her observation applies to find their voices, they tell and retell itorils multiculturalism: all we need to do iJto sub- that liberate. By writing about the people on stitute "minority scholars" for "feminists,,' Mango Street, explained, and "ethnic studies" for "women's studies." "the ghost does not ache so much." The place The intellectual backlashers are defending no longer holds her with "both arms. Shi sets "their" campuses against the "other."22 Iher] free." Indeed, stories may not be as in- The campaign against multiculturalism nocent or simple as they might seem. They reflects a larger social nervousness, a perplex- "aren't just entertainment," observed Native ity over the changing racial compoiition of American novelist .20 American society. Here Faludi's insights may On the other side, the interests seekine to again be transferrable. The war against maintain the status quo also recognize ihat women, she notes, manifests an identity-crisis the contested terrain ofideas is related to so- for men: what does it mean to be a man? One cial reality. No wonder conservative founda- response has been to reclaim masculinity tions like Coors and Olin have been financing through violence, to "kick ass," the projects to promote their own political sion George Bush used to describe his combat"*or.r'- agenda on campuses across the country, and with Geraldine Ferraro in the 1984 vice-presi- the National Association of Scholars has been dential debate. Eight years later, during the attacking multiculturalism by smearing it Persian Gulf war against Saddam HuJsein, with a brush called "political correctness.', Bush as President demonstrated masculine Conservative critics like Bloom are the real power in Desert Storm. In a parallel way, it campus bullies: they are the ones unwilling to can be argued, the expanding multicultural open the debate and introduce students to reality of America is creating a racial identity different viewpoints. Under the banner of in- crisis: what does it mean to be white?23 tellectual freedom and excellence, these Demographic studies project that whites naysayers have been imposing their own in- will become a minority of the total U.S. pop- tellectual orthodoxy by denouncing those ulation some time during the twenty-fiist who disagree "the with them as new barbari- century. Already in major cities across the ans," saluting Lynne Cheney, the former head country, whites no longer predominate nu- of the National Endowment for the Human- merically. This expanding multicultural real- ities for defending traditional American cui- ity is challenging the traditional notion of ture, and employing McCarthyite tactics to America as white. Vt4'rat will it mean for brand ethnic "un-American."2l studies as American society to have a nonwhite major_ How can the university become a meeting ity? The significance of this future, Time ob- ground when the encounter of oppositional served, is related to our identity-our sense ideas is disparaged? What Susan Faludi has of individual self and nationhood, or what it observed about the academic backlash means to be American. This demographic against women's liberation can be applied to transformation has prompted E.D. Hirsch to the reaction to multiculturalism. "T[e don- worry that America is becoming a "Tower of nish robes of manyof these backlash thinkers Babel," and that this multiplicity of cultures cloaked impulses that were less than schol- is threatening to tear the country's social fab- arly," she wrote. "Some of them were academ- ric. Nostalgic for a more cohesive culture and ics who believed that feminists had cost them a more homogeneous America, he contends,

What Is Multicultural America? 4g7 "If we had to make a choice between the one ern heritage" or speak of "our Founding Fa- and the many, most Americans would choose thers." American culture as it has been known, the principle of unity, since we cannot func- Auster warns, is disappearing as "more and tion as a nation without it." The way to cor- more minorities complain that they can't rect this fragmentization, Hirsch argues, is to identifr with American history because they promote the teaching of "shared symbols." In 'don't see people who look like themselves'in Cultural Literacy: INhat Every American that history." To preserve America as a West- Needs to Know, Hirsch offers an appendix of ern society, Auster argues, America must terms designed to create a sense of national continue to be composed mostly of people of identity and unity-a list that leaves out European ancestry.26 much of the histories and cultures of minori- What Auster presents is an extreme but ties.2a logical extension of a view shared by both The escalating war against multicultural- conservatives like Bloom and liberals like ism is being fueled by a fear of loss. "'Backlash Schlesinger: they have bifurcated American politics may be defined as the reaction by society into "us" versus "them." This division groups which are declining in a felt sense of locates whites at the center and minorities at importance, influence, and power,"' observed the margins of our national identity.'Ameri- Seymour Martin Lipset and Earl Raab. Simi- can," observed , has been de- larly, historian Richard Hofstadter described fined as "white." Such a dichotomization de- the impulses of progressive politics in the nies our wholeness as one people. early twentieth century in terms of a "status "'Everybody remembersj" she explained, lsvslullsn"-a widely shared frustration "'the first time they were taught that part of among middle-class professionals who had the human race was Other. That's a trauma. been displaced by a new class of elite busi- It's as though I told you that your left hand is nessmen. Hofstadter also detected a "para- not part ofyour body'"zz noid style in American politics" practiced by In their war against the denied parts of certain groups such as nativists who suffered American society, the backlashers are our from lost prestige and felt besieged by com- modern Captain Ahabs. In their pursuit of plex new realities. Grieving for an America their version of the white whale, they are in that had been taken away from them, they command;like Ahab directing his chase from desperately fought to repossess their country the deck of the Pequod, they steer the course and "prevent the final destructive act ofsub- of the university curriculum. Their exclusive version."2s definition of knowledge has rendered invisi- A similar anxiety is growing in America ble and silent the swirling and rich diversity today. One of the factors behind the backlash below deck. The workers of the Pequo d r epre - against multiculturalism is race, what Law- sent a multicultural society-whites like rence Auster calls "the forbidden tooic." In an Ishmael, Pacific Islanders like Queequeg, Af- essay published in the , he ricans like Daggoo, Asians like Fedallah, and advocates the restriction of immigration for American Indians like Tashtego.In Melville's nonwhites. Auster condemns the white liber- powerful story, Ishmael and Queequeg find als for wanting to have it both ways-to have themselves strangers to each other at first. As a common culture and also to promote racial they labor together, they are united by their diversity. They naively refuse to recognize the need of mutual survival and cooperation. danger: when a "critical number" of people in This connectedness is graphically illustrated this country are no longer from the West, by the monkey-rope. Lowered into the then we will no longer be able to employ tra- shark-infested water to secure the blubber ditional reference points such as "our West- hook into the dead whale, Queequeg is held

488 Multiculturalism in the United States by a rope tied to Ishmael. The process is peril- Iiberal Education: The Politics of Race and Sex on ous for "We both men. t!vo, for the time," Campus (New York Free Press, I 991 Ishmael "were ). tells us, wedded; and should 4. Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American poor Queequeg sink to rise no more, then Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democ_ both usage and honor demanded that, in- racy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students stead of cutting the cord, it should drag me (New York Simon & Schuster, 1987), pp. 19, down in his wake." Though originally from 9I-93,340-41.344. different shores, the members of the crew 5. Ibid., pp. 27, 29, 33, 35, 89, 90, 347. share a noble class unity. Ahab, however, is 6. University of Wisconsin*Madison: Tne able to charm them, his charisma drawing Madison Plan ( Madison: University of Wisconsin, them into the delirium of his hunt. Ori r"n bi 1988). a monomanic mission, Ahab charts a course 7. Rodney King's statement to the press; see that ends in the destruction of everyone ex- New York Times,2 May 1992, p.6. cept Ishmael.28 8. "Beyond Black and White," Newsweek, lg On college campuses today, the voices of May 1992,p.28. many students and faculty from below deck 9. Diane Ravitch, "Multiculturalism: E pluri_ are challenging such hierarchical power. In bus Plures," American Scholar, 59(3):337_5a their search for cross-cultural understand- (Summer 1990). ings, they are trying to re-vision America. But 10. Ronald Thkaki, Strangers from a Dffirent will we as Americans continue to Derceive our Shore: A History of Asian Americans (Boston: Lit_ past and peer into our future as throueh a tle, Brown, 1989); Irving Howe, World of Our Fa- glass darkly? In the telling and retelling oiour thers: The Journey of the East European Jews to particular stories, we will create communities America and the Life They Found and Made (New of separate memories, or will we be able to York: Simon & Schuster, 1976);Lawrence W. Le- connect our diverse selves to a larger national vine, Black Cubure and Black Consciousness: narrative? As we approach a new century Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery to Free- dominated by ethnic and racial conflicts at dom (New York: , 1977); home and throughout the world, we realize Mario T. Garcia, Desert Immigrants: The Mexicans that the answers questions to such will de- of EI Paso, 1880-1920 (New Haven, CT: yale Uni- pend largely on whether the university will be versity Press, 1981); Kerby A. Miller, Emigrants able to become both a battleground and a and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North meeting ground of varied viewpoints. America (New York Oxford University press, 1985). 11. Ronald Thkaki, A Different Mirror: A His_ Notes tory of Muhicultural America (New york Little, Brown, 1993); Gary Nash, Red, White, and Black: l. David l. Weber, ed., Foreigners in Their Na- The Peoples of Early America (Englewood Cliffs, tive Land: Historical Roots of the Mexican Amen- N/: Prentice Hall, 1974); Ivan Light, Ethnic Enter_ cans (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico prise in America: Business andWelfare among Chi_ Press, 1973), p. vi. nese, lapanese, and Blacks (Berkeley: University of 2. C. Van Woodward, "America Bad?" the California Press, 1972); Reginald Horsman, Race New York Review of Books,22 Nov. 1979; Ronald and Manifest Destiny: The Origins of American Ra_ Takaki, Iron Cages: Race and Cuhure in Nine- cial Anglo-Saxonism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard york: teenth-Century America (New Kno pf . *We ,197 9) University Press, 1981); Benjamin Ringer, the 3. Charles Sykes, politics |. The Hollow Men: People" end Others: Duality and America's Treat- and C orr up tio n in Higher Education(Washington, ment of Its RacialMinoritie.s (Newyork Thvistock, DC: Regnery Gateway, 1990);Dinesh D'Souza, 1l- r 983 ).

What Is Mubicukural America? 4g9 12. Ravitch, "Muiticulturalism," pp. 34I, 354. standing ed. Patricia Aufderheide (St. Paul, MN: 13. Arthur M. Schlesinger,lr., The Disuniting Graywolf Press, 1992), p. 11;George Will, "Liter- of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society ary Politics," Ne w sw eek, 22 Apr. I 99 1, p. 72; Arthur (Knoxville, TN: Whittle Communications, 199i ), Schlesinger, Jr., "When Ethnic Studies Are pp.2,24, 74, 81-82. Un-American I' Wall Street Journal,23 Apr. 1990. 14. Ibid., pp. 58,66. 22. Susan Faludi, Backlash: The Undeclared 15. fames Madison, quoted in Takaki, Iron War against American Women (New York: Cages, p.80; Arthur M. Schlesinger,Jr., The Age of Doubleday, 1992), p. 282. (Boston: Little, Brown idem, Dls- Jackson , Da5); 23. Ibid., p. 65. uniting of America, p.20. 24. William A. Henry III, "Beyond the Melting 16. Schlesinger, Disuniting of America, pp. 2, Potl' Time,9 Apr. 1990, pp.28-31; E. D. Hirsch, r., 27,64. f Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to 17. , Beyond the Cubure Wars: Know (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1987), pp. xiii, How Teaching the Conflicts Can Reuitalize Ameri- xvu, I, 16,90, t)Z-ZtJ. can Education (New York: Norton, 1992),p. 15. 25. Lipset and Raab quoted 18. Nathan Glazer, Affirmative Discrimina- in Faludi, Back- lash, p.231; tion: Ethnic Inequality and Public PollcT (New Richard Hofstadter, The Age of Re- From Bryan to ED.R. (New York: York: Basic Books, 1975); RobertBlauner, Racial form: Random House, 1955), pp. l3l-73. Oppression in America (New York: Harper & Row, 1972); Charles Murray, Losing Ground: American 26. Lawrence Auster, "The Forbidden Topic," Social Policy, 1950-1980 (New York Basic Books, National Review, 27 Apr. 1992, pp. 42-44. 1984); William Julius Wilson, The Truly Disadyan- 27. Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark: White- taged: The Inner City, the Underclass, and .Public ness in the Literary Imaginatlon (Cambridge, MA: Policy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Harvard University Press, 1992), p. 47; Bonnie 1987); Thomas Sowell, Ethnic America: A History Angelo, "The Pain of Being Black," Time,22 May (New York: Basic Books, 1981); Takaki, Strangers 1989, p. 121. Copyright @ 1989 Time Inc. Re- from a Different Shore. For an example of the de- printed by permission. bate format, see Ronald Takaki, From Different 28. Herman Melville, Moby Dick (Boston: Shores: Perspectives on Race and Ethnicity in Amer- Houghton Mifflin, 1956), pp. 182,253,322-23. lca (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987). i 9. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., I oose Canons: Notes (New on the Culture Wars York: Oxford University Takaki: Press, 1992), p. I 14. 20. PanyLowe, interview, 1924, Surveyof Race Relations, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford, l. What does Thkaki mean when he discusses CA; Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street "defining America"? What is involved in that (New York: Vintage, 1991), pp. 109*10; Leslie definition, and what is at stake? Marmon Silko, Ceremony ( New York: New Ameri - \Nhy can Library, 1978), p. 2. 2. does Thkaki say that the debate over how 21. Dinesh D'Souza, "The Visigoths in America should be defined is about power and TWeed," in Beyond PC: Towards a Politics of Under- privilege?

490 Multicuburalism in the United States