Civil Rights and Diversity.

The Importance of Civil Rights and Accepting Diversity

Colorado Technical University

America the great melting pot is an ideal based on the concept that we are all created equal and all free to be whoever we want to be. But we are no longer a fledgling country; we have a culture which is made up of many cultures. Whether we are talking about the indigenous American Indians, the English settlers, Asian, Hispanics or African American immigrants each has its own culture and way of doing things. A smart person would look to each culture to see if they have a better more efficient way of doing things. Someone not as smart might try to get the people from these other cultures to change their ways so that we are all the same. To leave a culture as it is or to try to change it can be discussed in the following terms, assimilation, pluralism, and multiculturalism.

If you have ever watched Star Trek: The Next Generation, then you are familiar with the Borg and assimilation. The Borg is a society built on the forced assimilation of people from other species. They literally took people willingly or not and physically changed them into their own kind. In relating this to immigration, it would be like saying to someone, you are more than welcome to come to our country, but you must adopt our ways of doing things. You must act like us, dress like us and eat the same foods we do. Most importantly assimilation means immigrants must think the way we do. If we hate communism then so must you. Some people think are a modified assimilation of peoples. One such is Peter Salins (1997) who believes that, “America's unique social compact of assimilation has permitted immigrants and their descendants to hold on to their ethnic traditions even as they acquired an American identity”. Immigrants should not have to lose the identity upon stepping across our borders. They can learn about our culture but keep it separate from their own and not have to give up their beliefs and customs, as we...