Major ethnic minorities in the USA, the problems they face

Jonh F. Kennedy printed out that “Every American who ever lived… was either an immigrant himself or a descendant of immigrants”. People from everywhere came to the USA, bringing the skills, ambitions and courage to convert a vast wilderness into a great industrial nation. Three strong forces: religious persecution, political oppression and economic hardship provided chief motives for the mass migrations who now call themselves as Native Americans. The first European immigrants were English; their first permanent colony was established in Jamestown, Virginia.

So, the major ethnic minorities in the USA are: African-Americans, Hispanics, Asian Communities, European Communities and Native Americans. Hispanics form the second largest cultural minority in the USA after the nation’s 30 mln blacks. They are most rapidly growing minority in the country. The tree largest Hispanic groups in the USA are: the Mexicans, Puerto-Ricans and Cubans. Mexicans have an important place in American history; they helped to establish Los Angeles and many other settlements that became major American cities. They also taught important methods of forming, mining and ranching to Americans. In general, the wide variety of immigrant group in the USA has given much to nation from bringing special customs and beliefs to great impact to industry.

The USA has often been called a “melting pot” because immigrants all over the world coming to the USA, who became one people with a common culture and a common loyalty. But the USA has never been a “melting pot” in the sense that it melted away all recollections of another way of life. Thus people have begun to call it a “salad bowl”, because in the USA many different elements are combined into a whole, but each ingredient retains its individual identity.

Some would argue the US has often had a cultural “cookie-cutter” approach with a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, male mold or shape as the model. White immigrant males could easily fit such a mold by adopting an Anglo name, converting to Protestant Christianity, and speaking English without a foreign accent. However, not everyone could fit the cookie-cutter mold. People can’t change their gender, skin color or hair texture. Some people melted more easily than others. In fact, it has become common to describe the US as a mosaic or a tapestry. These now popular metaphors suggest that it is acceptable to keep one’s differences and still be part of the overall society. In a mosaic or a tapestry, each color is distinct and adds to the overall beauty of the object. If you remove one piece from the mosaic or one thread from the tapestry, you destroy it. Today, it is easier to keep your differences. Differences in gender, race, national origin, ethnicity, religion and sexual orientation are acceptable and need not to be abandoned to have an equal opportunity to achieve your life goals.

In fact, most Am believe that diversity enhances creative problem solving and increases productivity. The issue facing America today is not how to get rid of differences, but rather how to manage a society with so many differences. The US has always been diverse, but it is no longer simply a matter of bringing together different European nationalities and ethnic groups.

So, society with differences faces several problems, such as: language, education, finding proper job and discrimination.