Ministry of Education of the Republic of Azerbaijan Baku International Multiculturalism Centre Azerbaijani Multiculturalism Textbook for Higher Education

7.2. Multiculturalism in the United States of America

Discussions on multiculturalism in the United States of America (USA) have developed for a variety of reasons. The first is the policy of assimilation pursued towards the indigenous peoples (aboriginals) living in the area before the discovery of the American continent. Another reason is the bringing of large numbers of African-born slave labourers to the American continent and the subsequent assimilation process in order to overcome the shortage of workers in the industrial and agricultural sectors of the country. After the signature of the Declaration of Independence of the United States, that is to say, after the political establishment

428 of the northern part of the country, the so-called ‘melting pot’

was formed with the aim of ensuring the unity of the European immigrants and the Anglo-Saxons – this can be considered another reason.

In addition to bringing to the fore their own language and culture in comparison to subsequent new waves of immigrants to the country, the European immigrants have been able to keep an important place in the political and cultural life of the country, and have created a unique demographic tableau through being ‘white’ and ‘Anglo-Saxon’. After the Anglo-Saxon immigrants, waves of immigration from China, as well as from a number of countries in Asia, and also from Latin America, have further enriched US cultural diversity. Latin American immigrants are distinctive in that they have been able to preserve their languages and cultures, as well as to maintain political, linguistic and cultural ties with their homeland, unlike Chinese and other Asians. The aforementioned immigrant groups are considered to belong to a more ‘alien’, different culture compared to the Anglo-­Saxon groups. The evaluation of these groups, brought to the country for the purpose of work, as representatives of an alien and distinct culture has led the Anglo-Saxon and white factors to come to the fore in the formation of political ideology in America. Ethnic discrimination later played a part both in the assimilation of the indigenous people and in the adaptation and ‘melting’ of immigrants into society. The ‘melting pot’ and ‘Anglo-Saxon conformity’ models, as Kymlicka describes them, have both been used together in certain cases. The ‘Anglo-conformity’ model attaches great importance to the assimilation of immigrants in order to forget their past and fully assimilate to existing conditions. A society that attributes significance to white thinking and has been formed on this socio-political basis considers it expedient for emerging differences to pass through the melting pot.

Section III

Chapter 7

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Azerbaijani Multiculturalism

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