Multiculturalism in Korea

Immigration is great so long as you actually have control over it, unlike in the US. I’m sure Korea could suck in plenty of MDs and PhDs from India and China who would contribute a great deal to society, were they so inclined.

Korea should take the page out of Singapore..by granting permanent resident/citizenship for the talented and educated ethnic Chinese (dominant ethnic group) from neighboring countries but short working visa for Indoneisan/Indians laborers. Problem is where to find all the eligeble Gyeopo to go back?? On the second thought, let’s scratch that!!

How many immigrants change their name in the US?

Almost none. Unless your name is Yoo-Sok-Dong or something.

When immigrants reach the boarder, they abandon their culture and assimilate into US culture.

That’s just crazy talk.

Now millions of South Korean women can return home with their foreign husbands and live happily ever after.

Apart from other good reasons, with one of the highest population densities on Earth, why would Korea even want to be multicultural? There are a multitude of problems in Korea that have a major root in this overpopulation problem: unemployment, pollution, housing prices, etc. Hauling in more people would make things worse.

A Society is a grouping of individuals characterized by common interests that may have distinctive culture and institutions.

J, you might be interested in Fred Reed’s thoughts on the myth of multiculturalism:

The Continuing Tantrum

Sour Thoughts On Multiculturalism

I guess somebody needs to explain multiculturalism to me. It’s because I’m from West Virginia. We’re slow up in the mountains, and dim, and have trouble understanding things that don’t make any sense at all.

Be patient. Explain multiculturalism to me in block letters.

If my history’s right, all kinds of folk used to come to America from every whichaplace. (I’m not sure that’s a word even in West Virginia.) They’d go off to a ghetto and be miserable. You’d have Eye-talians and Irish and Jews and Scowegians, people from every place there was and probably from some there wasn’t. Weren’t.

Before long they’d start marrying right and left, apparently without looking. Pretty soon you had people named Heidi Torricelli O’Feinstein. They weren’t sure what they were any more, so they decided to be Americans and not worry about it. It made good sense, because America was where they were. This gamboling about in the gene pool produced accidental monoculturalism, and it worked pretty well.

Hostilities died out because they were too complicated to remember. I mean, if the Germans were supposed to hate the Poles, and you were half German and your grandmother was a quarter Polish, then you had to hate an eighth of your grandmother–and no man could tell which eighth. The accounting alone made it impractical. People began to get along because it was the easy way out.

It works still. I’m mostly English, and months have gone by since I’ve shot at an Irishman.

But now, if I understand aright, we’re going to be multicultural, and stay split up in different tribes and act like it’s a good idea. (Separate but equal. Didn’t we do that before?) We’re going to have white, black, Hispanic, and Asian nations all in the same country. And we’re all going to live together in peace and love and mutual respect, and have drumming circles and smoke ditchweed together.

Now, granted I’m simpleminded. I don’t understand higher psychology. My school learning is pretty weak, like moonshine that didn’t get run through the radiator enough. Still, before we get too multicultural, I figure we ought to see how it works for other folk.

Start with Canada, since it’s stuck to us and can’t get away. Canada has a pretty good dose of Frenchmen in Quebec, and they’ve been nothing but trouble. The country’s always about to break apart because nobody can stand the French, and the French hate everybody. They’ll never get used to each other.

Now, you might think, OK, that’s just the Canadians. Maybe their brains froze or something. Maybe multiculturalism works better for other people.

Well, how about Mexico, which is multicultural in Indians? Last I heard, Mexicans and Indians were having a shooting war in Chiapas. So far, they haven’t done much in the line of drumming circles. Maybe some scalpings, though.

Of course there’s Yugoslavia, the world’s motingator case of multiculturalism. You can’t get much more multicultural. They’ve got cultures nobody can spell, all cutting each other’s throats. So far they’ve produced nothing but shrapnel.

I begin to suspect that multiculturalism works fine, soon as one side kills the other off.

And in Indonesia the Indonesians butcher the East Timorese, and in Rwanda the Tutus chop up the Hutsis (or Tootsies, or somebody), and in the Sudan the Moslem northerners kill the southern animists, and Iraq gasses its Kurds.

In Malaysia the Malays can’t stand the Chinese. In Ireland the Protestants and Catholics think they have to blow each other up every little while, like leaky air mattresses. The Vietnamese kick around the Montagnards, the Cambodians slaughter their Vietnamese, the Japanese hate their Koreans, and in South Africa the whites and blacks claw at each other like cats in a bag. In Israel the Arabs and Jews are no end multicultural, between explosions. The Christians and Moslems go at it in Lebanon, and the Guatemalans torture their Indians, the Tamils and Sinhalese in Ceylon shoot each other in droves, and. . . .

Yep, this multiculturalism business works pretty well. No one can deny it. Pretty soon there won’t be anybody left.

While we’re at it, how has multiculturalism done in the U. S. of A.? So far, it’s the worst problem we’ve got, unless Hillary gets elected. We have a white European country with an utterly incompatible, inassimilable black African culture spread through it. We spend most of our national energy trying to straighten that one out. We’ve got crime, welfare, racial hatred, riots, burned cities, weird political stuff like affirmative action, constant lawsuits, fear, loathing, and ill will.

I don’t guess we better try any more multiculturalism just yet. We don’t have enough guns.

But that’s just me. I hear now we’re gonna ghettoize the Hispanics instead of assimilating them, so we can have more riots and cities going up in flames, and about a dozen generations of hostility, and car bombs if we get really multicultural. Hooboy. I’ve never heard of a better idea.

Except any other idea at all.

Fact is, people of different flavors just don’t get along very well. Maybe we ought to. Maybe we all ought to love each other. Maybe we ought to be reasonable, though that’s stretching it. But we aren’t going to. We never have. So we better get busy and try to be one kind of people. That would be the smart thing to do. Still, it’s worth a try.

Why do we deliberately adopt a guaranteed recipe for divisiveness? You’d think a track record of unrelieved multicultural disaster would be some slight contraindication to more of it. If you think that, you obviously don’t have any experience of American politics. Still, you might ask, who is it that wants to inflict a multicultural morass on innocent Americans?

First, Democratic politicians trying to lock in voting blocs.

Second, the whole lemming pack of post-hippie professors, intellectuals, feminists, self-serving racial dissensionists, and aggressive vegetarians who have the touchiest of feely ideas and thirty seconds of experience in the real world. Thirty seconds aggregate, I mean. Why are they doing it?

Hard to say. They give me the impression of never having gotten over adolescence. They’ve confused America with their parents, and they’re mad at it, and they’re throwing a fit.

Me, I’m going back to Wheeling, where people are monocultural and talk the same and have the same DNA, and shoot pool in low dives. I mean, a bar fight at least makes some sense.

I think the process in the US is more amalgamation rather than assimilation. Both immigrants and American society are changed by each other. A friend wrote and told me that she has noticed that the southern half of Texas has essentially changed into a Mexican region, where you need to know Spanish if you want to “assimilate.”

I went to college in Hawaii, where a white American is not at the top of the food chain. In fact, I felt pretty close to the bottom, below native Hawaiians and others of Asian orgin.

Also, I felt pressure to assimilate in Hawaii, which I resisted. I did not want to learn pidgin English, and I did not feel comfortable giving the “hang loose” shaka sign to everyone and his grandmother. It just seemed kind of overdone to me.

Of course, in Texas I think people are also expected to assimilate, especially in the small towns, where “howdy” is common greeting, but I do not think there is as much pressure to assimilate in Texas as there was in Hawaii.

Anyway, J (#4), I think there is a lot of regional cultural differences in the US, and some of the big cities in the US even have neighborhoods of cultural diversity. Even in the medium-size town I come from in Texas, we have a fairly large Vietnamese neighborhood, where, reportedly, no dog is safe.

#16 Get a life. We are much more accepting of people than Europeans for instance. Been to Germany lately?? I have…not a very fun place if your muslim. Germans are talking of a violent showdown with the muslims in the near future. I don’t see that happening in America. The United States is large, we contain multitudes. However, the racist isn’t widespread and is mostly limited to a few parts of the population. I don’t think your an American…that’s a good thing. Aussies smell like stale beer. Get over yourself.

Nova Scotia is a lovely place. Hardly the most multicultural place in Canada, but very nice.

“White guys smell like wet dogs.”

Is lame racism the best you can do?

It’s totally unacceptable. What does he have against wet dogs?

Robert, surely you don’t want to deny Korea the blessings of diversity that have graced your homeland .

Re #13: Netizen Kim, I do not agree with all of your conclusions.

However, I compliment you on making a cogent and weighty argument. I admire the skillful way in which you cited examples to illustrate and support your thesis and the logic you brought to bear.

Too often what passes as argument is bald assertion accompanied by a mixed bag of logical fallacies. The all-too-pervasive “loudest voice wins” kind of pseudo-logic (“netizen logic”?) is all too often the norm.

I was recently criticised on another thread for “implying expert status” to support my arguments (the old “appeal to authority” logical fallacy). But I don’t do that. And neither did you.

Instead of resorting to the usual tricks you see in so many discussions, you effectively brought your own observations to bear in logical argument.

I said that I do not support all your conclusions. I would enjoy challanging them all the more because of their rigor.

Nice post.

swlee: “It is foolhardy to deny the US is actually a white state with only token acceptance of minorities.”

Then count me among the hardy fools who are too hardy to be fooled.

A “white state” – that is an interesting image, but I’m not quite sure what it means. “Token acceptance” – that is another interesting construct – so 1960s, so passe.

It brings on a nostagia for the old days when race was a forbidden secret, like a fart on an elevator that eveyone ignores.

What comes to mind when I see such hackneyed phrases pass for logical arguments is an old Eddie Murphey Saturday Night Live skit.

Eddie boards a bus filled entirely with stereotypical stiff white people, all sitting in silence, trying to ignore one another. Eddie’s bus stop comes up and he makes the awkward walk down the aisle and gets off the bus. The bus pulls away and all the white folks break out the martini and cocktail glasses and party.

I’d like to be there to welcome swlee to the 21st century.

Hey I’m a dude, if I marry a Korean chick and don’t understand what she or her family is saying to me, will the government teach me Korean too? That would be sweet!

If you called a Korean a wet dog do you think they would be so kind? Nope not at all.

#26 – “Some of my best friends are white.”

Gee, never heard that from a hater before. Seriously, talking about racism in the United States is fine, but what’s with comments on how races supposedly smell? It’s mean and immature.

Seriously the only way to solve this nation/race stuff is an Orgy. We Americans are very insulted that Koreans do not understand our uniqueness when it comes to us wanting to be sexual with our allies and mate with them. By birthright, Americans of all races are taught to be a very sexually deviant drug culture and want to bed everyone whom we ally, man or woman…

@J

St. Patrick’s Day – Irish
Columbus Day – Italian

Other holidays, perhaps lesser known, but tolerated/accepted:

Kwanza – African
Hanuka – Jewish
Three Kings Day – Hispanic/Latin??
Months dedicated to Asian/African/Latin/Native Americans
Ramadan – Islamic
Octoberfest – German

There is the binding American culture, how ever it is defined, but the “amalgamation” (Gbevers) is there. Some of the cultures may not be as popular or known, but they make little influences and we, hopefully, tolerate them and influence each other.

swlee @ #37

I didn’t write 매춘, so does that mean you are offering your services?

As for the comment about my Korean ability, well, suck it up while you iron my shirts. Bigot.

가는 말이 고와야 오는 말이 곱다.

To swlee @ #39,

You must be irony impaired. The stereotypes are merely throwing back what you wrote in another thread about English teachers, backpackers, and other foreigners causing trouble in Korea.

Anyway, you can assure people that you are not bigoted, or even point the finger at me, but you should wonder why people keep on accusing you of bigotry after directly reading your comments, and why you keep on having to deny it.

Anyway, why don’t you try to write in a way that isn’t low class? Saying that “white guys smell like wet dogs” then retreating by saying you heard it said and you are not the one saying it is at the kindergarten level. Don’t be so shameful.

Hey, enough is enough.

Nova Scotians are some of the nicest people in the world.

And that is all there is to that arguement.

Sorry Robert.
Being baited by both Dogbeat and Sakachi on one day required me to partake and dispatch them. I’m sorry for having to refer to Dogbeat’s family and antagonizing Sakachi for his abhorrence of the sweet aroma of freshly dampened puppy-dog fur.
The irony of being quoted 가는 말이 고와야 오는 말이 곱다 by Sakachi made up for it though.

@41, maybe if you weren’t socially retarded you understand?

Good answer (#24), Robert.

KC,

You may have been forced to Anglicize your name when you moved to the United States, but you and your family were not forced to lose the use of the Irish language. Your family and their lack of interest in maintaining their native language skills is to blame for that. In fact, you could relearn the language now if you really wanted to.

If you want your children to remain bilingual in the US, then you have to encourage them to maintain their language skills, but that is your personal business since it is your kids who will benefit from those skills in the future, not mine. In Hawaii, for example, many Japanese-Americans send their children to a Japanese language schools in the evening after they return from their regular day school. You could do the same thing with your children if it means so much to you.

Immigrants to the United States are free to preserve their native language and culture if they want to, but it should be done on a personal basis. I hope you are not suggesting that the US taxpayer pay for maintaining your children’s bilingual skills?

I think schools should offer foreign language courses as elective subjects if there is a demand for them, but I also believe that we need to preserve English as the official language of the United States, and encourage, by all means possible, all immigrants to the US to learn English. We do not want to turn the United States into a Tower of Babel, or worse, Canada. Imagine having a stop sign with ten different languages on it.

I do not understand what kind of multi-cultural United States you have in mind, but everyone should be able to speak, understand, and read English. If we accommondate immigrant cultures too much, they may not bother to learn English, which could lead to cultural walls being erected all over the United States. You would not want that, would you?

I want all Americans to speak English and know our laws and history. I hope that does not make me a white supremacist.

By the way, my son can speak English and Tagalog, and I hope to teach him some Korean when I get him over here. And when we get back to Texas, I will encourage him to learn Spanish.

Re: #49
“I want all Americans to speak English and know our laws and history. I hope that does not make me a white supremacist.

It depends on what version of history you want them to learn, is it the history that features a parade of white slave-owners as untarnished heroes without flaw, or a history that features and discusses what the founders of our republic were really like? (which I think makes their accomplishments even more impressive)
Does the history cover the Jim Crow laws? Lynchings? Race Riots? When they talk about Henry Ford is it only as the genius industrialist who developed the assembly line or do the mention the vehement anti-Semite who authored a book “The International Jew” and handed out copies of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” in his car dealerships?

When they cover Lewis and Clark do they mention that Clark refused to grant freedom to his slave that accompanied him on the journey, or that venereal diseases caught from the local tribes was a main source of difficulty during the expedition? Or the interesting fact dog meat was a major part of the expedition’s diet? Or that Lewis shot himself in the chest in the midst of an opiated depression?

I have taught history in mostly native schools for several years, and I have to say that the “whitewashed” version of history presented in the majority of textbooks did little to impart the truth and nothing to spark interest. In regards to the teaching of history in America, refer to any of the works by James Loewen. He has an excellent review of the text books currently used in US history classes.

Of course I will go on to encourage to my kid’s language skills, but what I am discussing is the acceptance of these skills in the public schools and society in general. Perhaps we are looking multi-culturalism differently. I am not talking about mandated multi-language road signs, but the acceptance of linguistic differences. The multi-culturalism that I have seen has been the result of the efforts of non-whites who want to regain their identity after having it been forcibly taken away from them. As for my family letting their Irish slide because of their lack of interest, perhaps that is true. However, I would say that it has a lot to do with the blatant racism the Irish were facing at that time, and the demand from the rest of America that they assimilate, speak English and act Anglo. My dad said some families in the neighborhood still spoke Irish and they were always poor and having trouble in school. Parents wanted kids to “fit in” and so they encouraged them to only learn English. Of course parents wanted kids to fit in because that was what the society was demanding of them. Thankfully this is not the case today as much as it was in the past.
Having schools that accept linguistic differences and don’t force “English Only” rules would go a long way in helping families preserve these skills. Having schools where native kids don’t have their mouths washed out with soap for speaking their own language would be a step in the right direction.
I think it is a little funny to say that a more multi-cultural society would result in more cultural walls being erected. I would imagine the opposite to be true. It seems that America’s exclusionary, racist structure right up until the recent era did a fine job of creating ghettos and segregating society.
I would not be asking for the taxpayer to foot the bill for teaching my kids language, the argument seems a little odd since the whole point is creating an atmosphere of acceptance of other languages that are taught and spoken at home, not teaching them in the schools. English should remain the language of our school system, but better effort needs to be made to meet the needs of ESL and ELL kids. Multi-culturalism is about making these kids accepted part of the educational community and not disillusioned drop-outs.
And one last point in regards to “if we accommodate immigrant populations too much, they may never bother learning English”
When it comes to America, who isn’t an immigrant? The Yup’ik on the Yukon would have some strong words to say about “accommodating” them as immigrants, seeing as they’ve been here about 12,000 years longer than us. Right now they’re simply trying to get a law passed that election ballots be printed in their own language as well as English.

Multi-culturalism is not something being forced upon us by liberals, it is a reaction by America’s non-white population to generations of racism and oppression in society and under the law.

I hope this doesn’t come off to much as an axe grinding exercise, this is just the perspective I have from the places I’ve taught. Perhaps being involved in the public education system has given too skewed an impression of the whole process.

I agree with Park Hyun.

While it is true that Japan has succeeded while appearing to be less multicultural than most developed nations, it is much more mentally attuned to global sensitivities.

Korea, on the other hand, accepts the artifacts and technology of the outside world while stubbornly clinging to a bizzarely solipsistic mindset. The refusal to EMPATHIZE with or trust non-Koreans, that is to hold them at arm’s length socially, hurts them tremendously.

Oh my Lord, hell hath frozen over. I actually agree with gbevers for once in almost a decade in his comment in #49.

A year or so ago the NY Times Magazine had a front page photograph of perhaps 20 or so children from a local public school.
When you read the accompanying article you found out that each child was of mixed race and some intersting combinations I might add..
There is no country on the face of the earth that is so diverse.How is it possible that there aren’t more conflicts?

KC,

I want a balanced version of US history taught, and that includes even the warts, but I do not think I would want you teaching my son history since I get the feeling that you have a very heavy chip on your left shoulder.

When you say you want the acceptance of linguistic differences, I guess you mean you want classes taught in their native language, right? If that is what you mean, then I do not think I agree with you.

What if there were just one Korean-speaking student in the whole school? You would want that student tutored in a separate Korean language class, away from the rest of the students? Wouldn’t that only isolate the student more and make it even more difficult for him or her to learn the language?

When I was in high school, we had foreign exchange students come to our school for one year of study. Most of them could hardly speak English when they arrived, but by the end of the year, most were quite fluent. I think immigrant students need to be weaned off their native language as soon as possible.

Also, are these non-whites that you say want to regain their identities parents or children? I think kids generally want to blend in, but often it is their immigrant parents who try to force them to keep to the old ways. So if there is anyone doing any mouthwashing with soup, I think it would be the immigrant parents.

By the way, how did these non-whites have their identities “forcefully taken from them”?

So you think it is funny to think that a multicultural society could erect cultural walls? You said you have taught in “native schools.” Does that mean “Native American” schools? If it does, do you think Native Americans are doing well? No dropouts in Native American schools? No problems blending in with mainstream America?

Yes, the United States is a nation of immigrants from all over the world, but they come here looking for a new life and expecting differences. If they want to bring some of their old ways with them, fine, as long as they do not expect me to accommodate them by changing my ways. However, as I wrote above, gradually we will change each other.

#53
Man!! you took my words. Well said!

“White guys smell like wet dogs.”

Really? Isn’t that the natural smell of Korean cities anyways? I guess you must really like to be around white guys since they bring out the flavor of the “old country” for you kyopos in a nostalgic manner. Not to mention, a wet dog smell probably makes any true Daehan saram lick his chops and water at the mouth thinking about that last great boshintang dinner.

^
i agree with what u are saying but i’ve a problem with your McCain reference.

i believe the president should be held to a higher standard. he should not use such language, at least not publicly anyway, and should set a good example for americans instead of promoting hatred. besides, there are some doubts about his supposed ill treatment by the viets.

Have to say that KC, Park Hyun, and Mizar5 sound much more reasonable (and gentlemanly) to me than any of the other commentors. While I think that no one really knows what ‘multiculturalism’ means or may mean in the future (it is something being thrashed out and negotiated in most of the world’s major cities right now), many of you who object to it seem to have either a very narrow idea of what ‘culture’ means (J in particular) or are clinging to notions of sovereign and (relatively) ethnic-based nation states. Comparisons between say Korea, on the one hand, and the US, Canada, Australia or Brazil on the other do not seem terribly productive to me (though I do agree with Mizar5′s distinction between Japan and Korea with respect to how they are attuned to the outside world).
Robert, I mean no disrespect and generally admire your restraint and even-handedness on this site, even though our politics are quite, quite different, but you kind of set this topic up for some of the more abrasive comments by your tongue-in-cheek and somewhat deprecating intro. And dissing Canada, though I know it is fashionable on this site and among many expats in Korea, is hardly appropriate on this particular topic. Canada has probably tried as much or more than any other country to explore what ‘multiculturalism’ may really mean, and it is a topic of an ongoing national public discussion. The record is mixed, I agree, but by no means all one of failure. The city of Vancouver is a shining example of a multicultural society. It is still evolving, and there are problems, yes, but it is on the whole already clearly a great success and will increasingly be seen as a model and an inspiration for other cities around the world as time goes on. Of this I am quite confident. There is no city of comparable size, or larger, on earth where I would rather live. (Incidentally I am a US citizen, I have lived in New York, San Francisco, Portland, Seoul, Kyoto, and Brisbane in addition to many smaller places on four continents). I am a white male American of English, Scottish, and French ancestry, but I do not feel in the least threatened by a half-black man becoming president, by Muslim head-scarves, by Hispanic or Asian immigration, by multi-lingual ballots or road signs, or by multiple streams of education in different languages. There will never be a final word on this topic, it is in constant evolution and negotiation, like an open jazz jam session. So mix it up. A new world with a planetary civilization is being born. In different places it will take on different flavors, but they will all have permeable borders, overlapping and shifting identities, and all be connected and mutually influencing. Why not enjoy it?

#69 – One world system, one world government, and one world everything. Is the end here already?

R e: #54,
Yes this is climber KC from Jinju, by way of Damyang, Detroit and Thunder Basin. Still alive and kicking, me and jinnam had three little boys in the span of a year, so our climbing has slowed down a bit, the oldest is just big enough to fit in a harness now and will learn to belay soon. I’m still tattooing, but for the last year my clientele has been exclusively Korean, some lessons learned, they take color much differently from white or blacks. Who is this I’m speaking to, Adrian? Owen!?

Re #58,
Mr. Quick, who is denigrating the founding fathers? I would simply like them to be depicted as humans with flaws and in the proper context of their times. Not flawless angels to be placed on a pedestal and sculpted into Greek gods on monuments to our religion of nationalism.
Jefferson was an amazing, brilliant man, who scholarship and compassion still echo from his writing, he also was a large slaveholder who only released 5 of his 267 slaves on his deathbed, all of whom were blood relatives of his. Should we ignore this fact as inconvenient, is it “liberal” to talk about historical facts?
This one killed me
“The descendants of slaves should whole-heartedly embrace the culture that denigrated and oppressed them for centuries. Because it is the same culture that followed its lights to see the wrong of slavery and correct it. And it is today a beacon of hope for people all over the world.”
I almost don’t know where to start, I can’t wait until the next time I visit my old neighborhood in Detroit, I’ll have to share this one with my friend’s I’m sure they’ll see the wisdom in it and repent their errant ways.
You should apply for a job writing history books.
Your perspective is exactly what the history books take as well, problems were in the past, not now, and we’ve fixed them. Slavery is done, gone. Racism is no longer a factor in American society; it never was a factor in slavery. Slavery was an economic issue. The colonialists weren’t racist, aren’t racist. What is racism, never heard of it? We’ve fixed the problems and everything is fine now. If only those lazy blacks would get off welfare and get to work.
Re#49,
Mr. Bevers,
First off, I wanted to applaud you for your efforts in educating your son. That is commendable. I also want to say that in the situation you give (one Korean speaker in a school) I would not at all support having a separate classroom. What I would support is full integration into the school environment, a school provided electronic dictionary ad other teacher accommodations, like guided notes, reading assignments given a week or two in advance, modified grading to represent advances in writing and spelling, etc..
What I would also support is for that child to be encouraged to share their culture and tradition with the rest of the school. Invite the child to speak about Tae Kwon Do when the class is discussing the Olympics, talk about the lunar New Year when it arrives. Simple stuff.
As for examples of how non-white were forcibly deprived of their culture I could provide several examples, but the simplest would be the one I know best. Throughout the Yukon valley children were forced to attend high schools by the BIA that were located in Washington state. These schools were largely run by church groups so participation in church services and acceptance of church doctrine were mandatory parts of their “education.”
They lost their connection to their families and tribes, when they returned after four years many could not speak their own language and were embarrassed or ashamed of their traditional cultures, as they had been taught to be by the missionary teachers.
The works of the government sponsored missionary Sheldon Jackson in Alaska also illustrates many examples of how the government worked to alter to culture and tradition of the natives to fit more into their plan for the state (development). I do not deny that many of these people had great intentions, but the results were catastrophic.
I would concede your point that natives are not doing well; they lead the nation in drop-outs and suicide. This is exactly the problems that multiculturalism is trying to address. They drop out of school because what they learn is that they have been wrong, backwards and savage and that their lives would be better if they could only be whiter. They learned that America’s heroes have been the enemies of their people. The hero Andrew Jackson, when commanded by the supreme court to uphold the territorial rights granted to the Cherokee by treaty, replied to the court that they should send their own army to enforce their decision, because his army was already on it’s way to force them off the land to make room for white settlers.
They drop out because school does not teach them to respect themselves or their culture, and they would rather drop out and become failures in the eyes of white society than turn their back on the culture they were born into. I guess it would all be so much better if they would just assimilate, like the Jews in Spain assimilated under the inquisition (which went on under the Catholic church in the new world long after it was disbanded in the old)
As for my being a leftist, I plan to vote for McCain in the next election because I do not think that Obama is honest. I like facts and truth. When you say it sounds like I have a chip on my left shoulder I can only reply that everything I said was true. Are there “liberal” facts and “conservative” facts?
I would like to think that there is only one truth, and different people who face it to varying degrees.
I have often seen that when you hold a mirror up to an American, if they don’t like the reflection they complain that the mirror is being held too far to the left. Like my mom complaining that the mirror in TJ Maxx makes her look fat, but never going on a diet herself. I myself try to hold the mirror up right in the middle, in front of the viewer.
When your son (being half Philippino and half American) gets older, what will you tell him about the Philippine-American war? Will you give him the liberal slant
“Fresh from their victory over throwing the legitimate native government of Hawaii in support of the Dole fruit company, the Amerikkan Imperialist war machine set it eyes on the Philippines…”
Or the conservative
“After overthrowing the colonial powers of Spain in the Spanish American war, the American army resigned itself to liberating the backwards people of the Philippines until such a time came as they were able to govern for themselves…”
Or will you just present the facts and let him make up his mind for himself? I prefer the third course.

Re #64 seouldout,
I take your point about native, but I guess if 12,000-40,000 (estimates vary) years of history in a place don’t qualify one as native, then we’re all Africans.
Growing up in Detroit, I had a full week of Ford almost every year in history class, but they never once mentioned his anti-Semitism nor his racism. This is the whitewashing of history I am complaining about.
As for your valuable lesson “remain on society’s periphery at your peril” I think you should do some more reading in history. The Cherokee who were forced off their land had adopted the white ways, they had settled down and were successful farmers and merchants, they had developed an alphabet, started schools and published newspapers, they were not on “Society’s periphery” they were not white. They were forcibly evicted from their farms and lands because white settlers wanted them.
You might be better to say “remain non-white at your peril”
In regards to the Yup’ik ballot initiative, I am not much of an outsider, having lived and taught there. And I know the other residents who are fighting for this recognition see the issue as more than “heartwarmingly multicultural”
What I think to them would be “rather patronizing” is the haughty tone of your comment that their political struggle is an “antic” that needs the “encouragement” of white society. As if they were children.

Well, that’s it. I’m spent. I have enjoyed sharing ideas with the members of this board, although it has been more disappointing and confusing than enlightening. I am moving back to Alaska in three weeks, so I don’t have time to continue this discussion. Thanks for listening.

KC @ #73

Growing up in Detroit, I had a full week of Ford almost every year in history class, but they never once mentioned his anti-Semitism nor his racism. This is the whitewashing of history I am complaining about.

Nonsense. How central was his anti-semitism to his important development of the assembly line? The answer is that it wasn’t. It was a kind of quirk that he later renounced.

First off, I wanted to applaud you for your efforts in educating your son. That is commendable. I also want to say that in the situation you give (one Korean speaker in a school) I would not at all support having a separate classroom. What I would support is full integration into the school environment, a school provided electronic dictionary ad other teacher accommodations, like guided notes, reading assignments given a week or two in advance, modified grading to represent advances in writing and spelling, etc..
What I would also support is for that child to be encouraged to share their culture and tradition with the rest of the school. Invite the child to speak about Tae Kwon Do when the class is discussing the Olympics, talk about the lunar New Year when it arrives. Simple stuff.

Geez, applauding a man for educating his son like he is some hick that needs praise from a social and moral superior. Get off your high horse, you sound like a jerk.

As for your idea, it is both impractical and racist. Impractical because it will require more manpower, separate and discriminatory tiers of grading, and may also enforce what is called “the tyranny of low expectations”. As for your idea about inviting kids to speak about their Tae Kwon Do or other aspects of their culture, remember that in school “inviting” a kid to do something is usually the same a forcing a kid to do something. While we are at it maybe we can have the black kids in class translate ebonics for the other kids in class, or tell the class how the entire black community feels about this or that issue. Frankly, I find your line of thinking patronizing and disgusting.

As for my being a leftist, I plan to vote for McCain in the next election because I do not think that Obama is honest. I like facts and truth.

He is a war criminal that bombed innocent women and children. He is trying to do the same thing in Iran. Forget about electric dictionaries and other such nonsense, how about you not vote for people that advocate the mass murder of non-whites as a start point for your social justice?

KC

NZRob, now in Seoul, but it’s too hot to read all this verbiage… but great to hear you’re still in this world…

BTW, take a look at Wikipedia’s section on South Korea in its “Multiculturalizm entry:

“South Korea is among the world’s most ethnically homogeneous nations having been virtually isolated from the outside world until the 20th century. Historically, the country has tried hard to keep interaction between Koreans and non-Koreans as minimal as possible, forming a very distinct society. Koreans have traditionally valued an “unmixed blood” as the most important feature of Korean identity, often more important than their own lives. During periods of invasions, many Korean women killed themselves when they were made pregnant by a foreigner, as otherwise, it would dilute the “Korean blood”. While not as extreme in the past, to this date, most Koreans tend to equate nationality or citizenship with membership in a single, homogeneous ethnic group sharing the same “blood” and history. A common language and culture are also viewed as important elements in Korean identity.”

“Those who do not share such features are often rejected by the Korean society or face discrimination. This includes Koreans themselves who may not share one of the elements of Korean identity. For example, Koreans brought up overseas often face discrimination by Koreans living in South Korea upon their return who may not speak the language properly or have developed a different culture. North Koreans who immigrated to South Korea, despite sharing the same Korean blood and history, face discrimination as they do not share all of the elements of Korean identity, such as speaking the Korean language with an accent. Even South Koreans brought up In rural areas who speak with an accent, face some form of discrimination by those in the cities of South Korea. Racial discrimination is not uncommon in South Korea and is sometimes seen as socially acceptable among South Koreans which is an illegal act in Western countries.”

“The idea of multiracial or multiethnic nations, like Canada or the United States, is opposed in general and strikes many Koreans as odd or even contradictory. Relationships between a Korean and non-Korean is seen skeptical by some South Koreans and often rejected. In particular, marriage or even a friendship between a Korean and Japanese is seen as completely unacceptable in the Korean society due to strong Anti-Japanese sentiment in Korea. The term “Kosian”, referring to someone who has a Korean father and a non-Korean mother, is considered offensive by some who prefer to identify themselves or their children as Korean. Moreover, the Korean office of Amnesty International has claimed that the word “Kosian” represents racial discrimination. According to Pearl S. Buck International, there are approximately 30,000 Kosians in South Korea. Kosian children, like those of other mixed-race backgrounds in Korea, often face discrimination.”

This should provide a better understanding of what the posters here are discussing.

#73.

Did I deny racism exists? Do you think blacks should fight against the American culture, form a revolutionary guard, and seek the end of the Republic? If not, do you think they should continue to push ahead with the negative culture of victimhood and thuggery that is represented so eloquently in rap ? If they are not to embrace America as it is, are they to continue down the road of insisting that blackness is more important than American-ness, that white heros must be denigrated or rejected, and/or all the other ideas that are in themselves the most racist that are put forth by any ethnic group in America? What do you think they should do?

And what about the double standard of racism that exists all through the black community? Are whites supposed to continue to accept black-on-white racism out of white guilt for anohter couple hundred years, to make up for the hundreds of years of slavery and abominations that blacks endured? Two gargantuan wrongs make a right? Doesn’t sound like a lot of fun.

Correction: I meant to write that I have not found blacks to be more racist-leaning than whites.

Mizar5, as to your first 2 questions in #78, read my comment #4.
The quote from #49 is not what I say.

I find Americans tend to think that a collection of people from various races and ethnic groups makes a “multicultural” society. Look at your own country. Whites, blacks and so on all belong to one American culture.

@85 What American culture is that? I’m not sure if I could identify one commonality in all Americans that could be called American culture. The flag? Hardly culture in the traditional sense. Christmas? We have Jews and Muslims in America. Fourth of July? Maybe culture. The point is that there isn’t one common thing in America that makes up American culture. We are a multi-cultural society in the fact that we have more than one culture that could represent the country.

I’d like to point out that these traits need not be apparent at the same time, ie, Americans do not neccessarily have to eat bad food while shooting people, or vice versa.