Diversity is not a new concept to Los Angeles. This city has been part of several ethnic groups before it gains its fame as one of the most famous location on Earth. Being a hotspot attraction, there is no doubt about the variation in demographic population in the area; hence making it a multicultural city. However, as economic grows and globalization takes place, rather than remaining as just a multicultural city, Los Angeles has been slowly transforming itself into what is known as a postnational city. Multiculturalism implies the co-existence of cultural identities includes racial, religious, styles of thinking and political views, within the same border of state. Race is an important factor to some when it comes to what is considered as “multicultural” since it define people physical appearance and if people within a geographical region look different, the area is diverse. However, race is a socially …show more content…
constructed concept.
It associates physical characteristics that are socially perceived as something that differentiates the members from one group to another; hence, in modern society, people turn to different frameworks and ideologies to measure the differences between groups of people within a border and justify whether that region is multicultural or not. And for an area to be considered multicultural, it is also implies that these cultures have intersections and interactions in daily lives. For instance, we can see Los Angeles as a multicultural city in the music scene during the 1960’s decade where Chicano rock was heavily influenced by jazz and rhythm and blues from African American cultures. Fast forward to the 21st century, Los Angeles experienced great globalization through the power of the Internet and modern technologies. As Saskia Sassen stated in “Towards Post-National and Denationalized Citizenship,” modern improvements
enabled “cross-border networks among individuals and groups with shared interests.”1This has strengthened alternative notions of community of membership on the emergence of locations for identities and citizenships of a region outside the confines borders. A similar idea was also mentioned in “Introduction: The Postnational Turn in Music Scholarship and Music Marketing,” by Ignacio Corona and Alejandro Madrid as they suggested that people who shared an interest, cultural or identity can “move through the borders of the nation-State via a range of technologies” to formed “imagined communities,” where a national identity, in this case a city identity, is no longer important2. This formation is often associated with the impact of globalization since it has altered certain features and geopolitical economy of the region. After Los Angeles experienced globalization, the city social, economic, and political ideologies shifted from their local perspectives into a more generalize extension across global expanses that slowly erases and blurs the city’s original geographical borders can no longer serve regulations. As mentioned by Corona and Madrid, because of globalization “ a sense of commodified otherness, blurred boundaries between exotic and familiar, the local and global in transnational popular culture,” was created and this eventually will transform a normal city into a postnational city, where national identity and restrictions no longer apply3. Taking advantages of postnational cities, corporations these locations as marketing and musical strategy for world music; this can lead to even more globalization.
middle of paper ... ... Given that multiculturalism is a framework that says that anyone can sit at the table so long as they accept certain political and cultural divisions which ultimately work to make impossible your ability to change the basic structure of meaning in society, or which seek to extract any political potential from the things you say, the things you embody and the things you want. You can have holidays, but not your language. You can have a month of the year for your race, but no justice.
Living in a city like Houston, diversity is present in every corner. From different races and beliefs to different sexual orientation. However, having grown up in Miami, diversity was not present in most situations. Most of the people in my community were mostly Cuban or from Central and South America. All my friends knew how to speak Spanish and shared similar cultures.
Los Angeles is a city with a large population which consists of a substantial number of immigrants. A wide range of immigrants from around the world have settled in Los Angeles making it one of the most diverse cities in this country. Many citizens of Los Angeles have strong arguments on whether or not an immigration reform is beneficial or if it is going to harm the city and its residents. The topic of immigration is of great importance because it is an issue that Los Angeles has experience for several of years and will continue in many more to come if action is not taken. Any changes made in regards to immigration are going to affect people in Los Angeles one way or another regardless of the perspective they might sustain about the subject because money and the community are involved in case of any modification. The city of Los Angeles is no stranger to the issue of immigration, which requires a solution through the process of an immigration reform to enforce constitutional value through the process of establishment of citizenship and amnesty. Immigration reforms will develop a political policy that is going to improve, modify and change our current immigration policy. It is essential and beneficial for the city of Los Angeles to obtain an immigration reform which will benefit families by offering broader, equal and fair opportunities as it will provide the city with economic growth.
Today in Canada it is not uncommon to see people of various races, ethnic backgrounds or cultural groups living within a mutual society; commonly known as multiculturalism. Multiculturalism refers to the presence of, or support for the presence of several distinct cultural or ethnic groups within a society. As the topic becomes more more popular due to news events and social media debates, multiculturalism gets twisted and misunderstood. In essence, multiculturalism is not about dwelling on about our differences, it is about emphasizing our commonality. Diversity of the human race has the power to unify society and make it stronger. Firstly, innovation
New York is worlds one of the most significant, historic and precious city. It is often considered as the cultural and financial capital of the world. However, what makes New York so unique, popular and famous? It is New York’s immigrants. For my research I have used two texts, One Out of Three by Nancy Foner and New York by M.J. Howard. In the first text Foner gives an insight description about immigrant’s contribution in economic and cultural sector of New York. In the second text Howard writes about Immigration history and the way immigration has changed New Yorks lifestyle. New York is America’s most essential gateway city to immigrants. According to asanet.org “from the year 1850 to now massive amount of immigrants have moved and lived
“Our cultural diversity has most certainly shaped our national character,” affirmed Julie Bishop. From my perception, New York City is one of the most densely inhabited metropolitan collection of cultural diversity in the world in which structures our temperament. New York City applies an imperative influence upon trade, economics, mass communication, skill, style, and education. Frequently it is known that New York City is a crucial core for global politics and has been depicted as the ethnic headquarters of the globe. New York City has been known as a melting pot of culture and as this prolong throughout towards the current day, the city has become ornate with distinct cultures. Just walking around the streets of the city can be like walking around the halls of a cultural museum. From borough to borough, you can straightforwardly experience several features of different cultures by going to the different ethnic neighborhoods that exist throughout the city. For instance, if you wanted to take a trip to China that you've always dreamed of but couldn’t afford it, when living in New York City you can hop on a subway to Canal Street and be in Chinatown for just a few dollars. Certainly, it's not the same as literally being in China, however, you can experience a quantity of the culture and perchance grab some bona fide Chinese food for dinner. Several places holds their culture to denote each individual in New York City, to make an abundant of people to visit and feel each culture one setting at a time.
Over the years, the United States has evolved into a place where culture defines the American experience. Despite the difficulties that come when people have different life experiences, diversity carries strong importance in many organizations. Diversity comes in many forms such as race, age, income, and background. However, the most relevant is race. Race is defined as categories that generally reflect a social definition recognized in this country and not an attempt to define race biologically, anthropologically, or genetically ("What is race?," 2012) . Race is determined by self-identification.
?A definition of race might rely on an outward manifestation such as color or some other physiological sign. Race and ethnicity (and to some degree nationality) also imply a shared socio-cultural heritage and belief system. Finally, race and ethnicity harbor a physiological self-identification. Indeed, this factor is perhaps the most important in defining the identity of an ?ethnic? or ?racial? individual. It implies a conscious desire on the part of a person to belong to an aggregate of people, which possesses unique cultural characteristics, rituals and manners and a unique value system.
The humble beginnings of Los Angeles only further emphasize the uniqueness of the construction of the community. Los Angeles morphed from a pueblo into a major metropolis overnight. In the county of Los Angeles, a population of 101,000 people in 1890 soared to a roaring 2.2 million by 1930 (Villa 37-38). These immigrants were overwhelmingly Anglo, a stark juxtaposition to the previous majority of Mexican-Americans. From the moment of their arrival, this new majority began to create a new community. To understand this new community, one must use a socio-geog...
Multiculturalism is defined and interpreted in various ways, all interpretations resonate with this definition; multiculturalism is the institutionalised implementation of foreign cultures into a native culture following the philosophy that every culture is morally valid. Moral validity is an idea that should be taken into careful consideration when regarding foreign cultures. If all cultural values were truly morally valid there would be an undivided ideology; humans would all agree on what is right and what is wrong. When allowing immigrants to hold their origin culture, there are detrimental cultural values that are conserved. Retaining these poor cultural values creates conflict amongst
Despite having to battle discrimination and poor neighborhoods, second and third generation Mexican-Americans have made a great strife to overcome large obstacles. Mexican-Americans are finally gaining representation in city government representing the 9.6 million Mexican residents of Los Angeles. White politicians can no longer ignore Mexicans in Los Angeles, as former mayor Richard Riordan saw in the elections of 1997, in which his re-election was largely in part to the high turnout of Mexican voters in his favor. Although Capitalism still exists in the greater Los Angeles, its influence is not as great as it was fifty years ago. Los Angeles continues to serve as the breeding grounds for new cultures, ideologies, and alternative lifestyles. The pursuit of the American Dream becomes a reality for most immigrants in LA. LA is a great place to live, party, and be from. I knew little about the history of Los Angeles prior to this course, but now I am well prepared to answer the question of, “What makes Los Angeles, Los Angeles?”
In his article “The Failure of Multiculturalism”, Kenan Malik uses the diverse European culture to study and explain the irony of multiculturalism. He defines multiculturalism as “the embrace of an inclusive, diverse society” (Malik 21). Integration between cultures is practically inevitable, but several nations view this as a threat towards upholding their culture. Due to this, many countries have made attempts at properly integrating new people and ideas while trying to prevent the degradation of their own. This can result in unjust regulations and the reverse effect of an intended multicultural society.
Diversity is a value that shows respect for the differences and similarities of age, sex, culture, ethnicity, beliefs and much more. Having a diverse organization, helps notice the value in other people and also how to teach respect to people that might not know how. The world is filled with different cultures and people that might believe in different things as you, but that doesn’t mean you need to treat them any different. It is imperative for people to grasp diversity because it’ll help people how to engage with others in a respectful yet a hospitable way.
The greatest example of multiculturalism today is the world of electronic dance music festivals, and music festivals in general. These large festivals attract crowds well over 100,000 attendees, many of which are from all different types of backgrounds. For example, Electronic Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas, Nevada which is held annually every June, attracts hundreds of thousands of individuals all coming together to celebrate their love of dance music. At Electronic Daisy Carnival or EDC as it is known, no judgments are passed on people for any reason such as race, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic background, or age. Everyone that attends is treated with love and respect. Many people who attend these festivals have a motto that they base their actions on known as P.L.U.R. which stands for peace, love, unity, and respect. You treat others with love kindness and respect in order to have unity, not many other places or events can boast that this type of interaction amongst individuals can be achieved. At EDC everyone is treated as equals, no one group who feels that they are better than another group for any reason. Unfortunately, in other aspects of our society there is an emphasis on seeing the differences in one another, which divides people instead of bringing them closer to help achieve a multicultural world. The unfortunate
Multiculturalism is the idea that numerous ethnicities can co-exist in the same space. One of the policies such as commodification of ethnicities. Some countries actively encourage enthnoscapes such as Chinatown in Vancouver to promote economic growth and tourism in those areas (Hoernig & Walton-Roberts, 2009). This can lead to ethnoscapes being whether they are authentic to a particular home ethnicity or whether it is manufactured differently. Hoernig & Walton-Roberts (2009) asserts that globalization, immigration and urbanization are the 3 mechanisms of how a multicultural city is made up. These are the main drivers of a multicultural city. There are different levels of exclusion and inclusion. Often multicultural cities are façade. For instance, Singapore is seen as quite a multicultural city but there maybe some areas where segregation is present. Hoernig & Walton-Roberts (2009) states that Singapore has diligently ‘imagineered’ itself as a cultural city. The different levels of exclusion and inclusion can be created by family ties, education level and types of work that different ethnicities do. Therefore this leads to the tangible and transitory aspects of ethnoscapes that are present in urban areas. For instance, Sandringham Road has a lot of Indian eataries and is known as the ‘Indian food neighbourhood’ (Friesen,