Wrap Up- American Cultural Diversity

From this class , I learned that American culture is unique because it is nurtured, formed and developed under certain conditions, which are characteristically American. The major factors contributing to the making of this nation and the forming of a new culture are the hard environment, ethnic diversity and plural religion, which is quite different from other nations in the world. What is more, these elements are still influencing the American culture.

America is a country with multiple ethnic groups and cultures. People learn from each other and cultures also evolve and change with the development of the society. Therefore America is sometimes considered as a melting-pot. However some people disagree and thinks different cultures in the society still keep their own identities and therefore it is more of a salad bowl than melting pot.

The salad bowl concept suggests that the integration of the many different cultures of United States residents combine like a salad, as opposed to the more prolific notion of a cultural melting pot. In the salad bowl model, various American cultures are juxtaposed — like salad ingredients — but do not merge together into a single homogeneous culture. Each culture keeps its own distinct qualities. This idea proposes a society of many individual, "pure" cultures, and the term has become more politically correct than melting pot, since the latter suggests that ethnic groups may be unable to preserve their cultures. The salad bowl has been accused of being a communitarianist model, while supporters of it speak of multiculturalism.

I am very interested in American culture, I wonder to learn more about it from this class.