Multiculturalism: 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 United States 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 "racism." 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 Asian Americans. 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