Social Cohesion

It's tempting to say that multiculturalism is dead in America, but that would imply that it was actually alive once.

Multiculturalism -- the ideology that promotes equal status for different cultures in one nation -- emerged circa 1970 when foreign-born residents made up the lowest percentage of the American population in U.S. history. Though it came to encompass other minority groups, African Americans gave the multicultural movement its initial moral impetus when black activists concluded that they no… more

Patriotism may be the last refuge of scoundrels, but it is also often the rhetoric of first resort for racists and right-wingers. That's why it's so significant that a growing number of prominent liberal -- and nonwhite -- Britons are promoting national pride as a way to encourage social cohesion in this increasingly diverse nation.

The demand for such solidarity comes in reaction to recurring race riots, increased immigration, the devolution of Britain into semiautonomous parts and, of course,… more

Gregory Rodriguez has written widely on issues of national identity, social cohesion, assimilation, race relations, religion, immigration, ethnicity, demographics, and social and political trends in such leading publications as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and the Los Angeles Times, where he is an op-ed columnist. Mr.… more

The timing was perfect. Just as a growing number of American women were entering the labor force, a massive wave of immigration -- much of it undocumented -- was headed north from Mexico and Central America.

With so many U.S. women leaving the home in the 1970s and 1980s, the demand for paid domestic work skyrocketed, particularly in urban areas with large immigrant populations. In the past, only the wealthy few could afford in-house child care, but suddenly the combination… more

Former California Gov. Pete Wilson probably wasn't on too many peoples' minds at last weekend's massive downtown march. But that doesn't mean his presence wasn't felt. Before Wilson endorsed and legitimized Proposition 187, the anti-illegal immigrant ballot initiative in 1994, too many Mexican immigrants were content not to participate in U.S. civic life. But that year's anti-illegal immigrant campaign, and the national anti-legal immigrant crusade that followed, changed the way millions of immigrants approached life in the United States.… more

South Korea's 7-3 victory over the United States in the World Baseball Classic on Tuesday wasn't the only sporting news that made front-page headlines in Seoul last week. On the same day that the South Korean team "spanked the U.S." -- as the English-language edition of the Korea Times put it -- the nation's prime minister was forced to resign after it was revealed that he had played golf with some shady businessmen on a national holiday that coincided with… more

When I first heard that Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa had agreed to deliver the Democratic Party's Spanish-language response to President Bush's State of the Union address, I had the urge to call him up and plead, "Say it ain't so, Tony."

There's certainly nothing wrong with the Democrats producing a political message in Spanish--Bush also has delivered radio addresses in the language--but the ethnic politics behind the decision are decidedly lame. If the Democrats had really wanted to offer a… more

Just when I thought this columnist gig wouldn't pay off, I got a call from Kenny Yee, L.A.'s "Noodle King." Kenny is the president of Wing Hing Noodles, a local, family-owned firm, as well as the head of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce of Los Angeles. He called to ask me to be a judge at this year's Miss Los Angeles Chinatown Pageant. Who was I to turn him down?

Last week in Beijing, a prominent Chinese lawyer and art collector unveiled an 18th century map that some say proves a Chinese explorer by the name of Zheng He discovered America more than 70 years before Christopher Columbus. That means that next week, Chinese grandmothers all over the United States will begin telling their grandchildren of their ancestor's seminal role in American history.

Don't laugh. Countless other ethnic groups have employed similar dubious facts--and even downright fictions--as a way of asserting… more

When the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University released a study in March concluding that the graduation rate for "minority" students in the Los Angeles Unified School District was under 50%, nobody publicly second-guessed them. On the contrary, politicians and editorialists embraced the figure as gospel.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa evidently believes the number and routinely cites it when arguing for education reform. And why wouldn't he? The district's student body is 71% Latino, and for nearly a generation activists… more