multicultural

adj.

1. Of, relating to, or including several cultures.
2. Of or relating to a social or educational theory that encourages interest in many cultures within a society rather than in only a mainstream culture.

multiculturalism mul'ti·cul'tur·al·ism n.
multiculturalist mul'ti·cul'tur·al·ist n.

Origin: 1941

During the deadliest war of the deadly twentieth century, the term multicultural emerged as an antidote to an -ism that had brought much suffering. The -ism was nationalism (1844), the insistence that one nation was superior to all others and should impose its culture on the rest of the world. The antidote was named in a book review in the New York Herald-Tribune for July 1941 applauding "a fervent sermon against nationalism, national prejudice and behavior in favor of a 'multicultural' way of life." Multiculturalism (1965) meant "respect for the ways of all nations and peoples," not just one's own.

After the war, the idea of being multicultural raised doubts not only about nationalism but also about imperialism and colonialism. After the brutal midcentury experience of those -isms, it was no longer easy to assume that any single culture was so superior that it justified the domination of others. The word multicultural advocated coexistence. To our north, for example, Canadians used multicultural to describe their attempt to accommodate both English and French culture and language in their commonwealth.

In the United States, multicultural led a quiet life until it became a key word in the "culture wars" of the 1980s and 1990s. Liberals began voicing their dream of the United States as a multicultural country, one with diverse peoples and cultures drawn from all over the world, sharing a common belief in freedom and democracy. Instead of seeing the country as a melting pot (1907) cooking up a single American way of life, they celebrated diversity.

They also began to expand the definition of culture beyond ethnicity, race, and religion to include gender and lifestyle, so that multicultural could mean "respect for different ages, sexes, physical or mental capabilities, and sexual orientations." At an extreme, respect might even be demanded for the distinct "cultures" of vegetarians, animal rights activists, millenarians, and transvestites. For some conservatives, this was too much. They saw multiculturalism as undermining respect for our unique American ideals and way of life, for the Western Civilization from which these ideals sprang, and for "family values." The debate continued inconclusively as the century drew to an end.

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Note: click on a word meaning below to see its connections and related words.

The adjective has one meaning:

Meaning #1: of or relating to or including several cultures
  Pertains to noun: multiculturalism (meaning #1)

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Quotes:

"The establishment of democracy on the American continent was scarcely as radical a break with the past as was the necessity, which Americans faced, of broadening this concept to include black men." - James Baldwin

"We become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams." - Jimmy Carter

"We Americans have the chance to become someday a nation in which all radical stocks and classes can exist in their own selfhoods, but meet on a basis of respect and equality and live together, socially, economically, and politically. We can become a dynamic equilibrium, a harmony of many different elements, in which the whole will be greater than all its parts and greater than any society the world has seen before. It can still happen." - Shirley Anita Chisholm

"Once the visitor was told rather repetitively that this city was the melting pot; never before in history had so many people of such varied languages, customs, colors and culinary habits lived so amicably together. Although New York remains peaceful by most standards, this self-congratulation is now less often heard, since it was discovered some years ago that racial harmony depended unduly on the willingness of the blacks (and latterly the Puerto Ricans) to do for the other races the meanest jobs at the lowest wages and then to return to live by themselves in the worst slums." - John Kenneth Galbraith

"Fortunately, the time has long passed when people liked to regard the United States as some kind of melting pot, taking men and women from every part of the world and converting them into standardized, homogenized Americans. We are, I think, much more mature and wise today. Just as we welcome a world of diversity, so we glory in an America of diversity -- an America all the richer for the many different and distinctive strands of which it is woven." - Hubert H. Humphrey

"It's just like when you've got some coffee that's too black, which means it's too strong. What do you do? You integrate it with cream, you make it weak. But if you pour too much cream in it, you won't even know you ever had coffee. It used to be hot, it becomes cool. It used to be strong, it becomes weak. It used to wake you up, now it puts you to sleep." - Malcolm X

See more famous quotes about Multiculturalism

Dansk (Danish)
adj. - multikulturel

Nederlands (Dutch)
multicultureel

Français (French)
adj. - multiculturel

Deutsch (German)
adj. - multikulturell

Ελληνική (Greek)
adj. - πολυπολιτισμικός

Italiano (Italian)
pluriculturale

Português (Portuguese)
adj. - multicultural

Русский (Russian)
относящийся ко многим культурам

Español (Spanish)
adj. - multicultural

Svenska (Swedish)
adj. - mångkulturell

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
多文化的, 融合多种文化的

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
adj. - 多文化的, 融合多種文化的

한국어 (Korean)
adj. - 다 문화적인

日本語 (Japanese)
adj. - 多文化的な

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(صفه) متعدد الثقافات‏

עברית (Hebrew)
adj. - ‮רב-תרבותית (חברה)‬

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multicultural