Table of contents introduction

Multiculturalism is the recognition that several different cultures can exist in the same environment and benefit each other. The cultures may be national cultures or may be those of various ethnic groups within the same nation. For example, in 1960, the U.S. workforce was dominated by Euro­pean American White males. One could stand in the lobby of an office build­ing at the end of the workday and observe people exiting elevators. Well-dressed White men stepped out of the elevators that descended from the executive floors. Women, mainly European Americans, came out of the ele­vators from the floors of the building on which the typing pool was located. The men from the loading dock and the furnace room, dressed in work clothes, were often members of ethnic groups.
Today, the composition in the scene of people getting off the elevators is much different. The genders would no longer be segregated on the executive floors versus the typing pool, nor would members of different ethnic groups be limited to manual occupations. Today, about 80 percent of the additions to the U.S. workforce are women, members of ethnic groups, and immigrants. Male European Americans are now a minority of individuals entering the employed ranks. This dramatic change in the U.S. workforce is one evidence of multiculturalism in the United States.
Brazil is often held up as an ideal society in a multicultural sense and one that might hold useful lessons for the United States. The largest country in Latin America in territory and population size, Brazil's history parallels that of the United States. European colonizers, the Portuguese, overwhelmed the native people, whose population dropped in the 1800s due to the spread of European diseases. The Portuguese imported slaves from Africa to work on plantations and in businesses, Brazil imported eight times as many slaves as did the slave states in North America. Then, about 100 years ago, large numbers of Italians, Germans, Spanish, and Portuguese immigrated to Brazil, as occurred in the US at about the same time.
Unlike the United States, however, Brazil is characterized today by rela­tively smooth race relations. Some 40 percent of the total population are of mixed ancestry, due to widespread intermarriage between the European immigrants, African Americans, and the native people. Black and White are not perceived as a dichotomy: Why is Brazil so unlike the United States in its race relationships? Historically, many former slaves were freed in Brazil, and a smooth transition took place when slavery ended in 1888, unlike the U.S. Civil War of the 1860s. Blacks and Whites were economically dependent on each other in Brazil, and people of African ances­try were highly valued as employees. So the European Brazilians were much more dependent on the slave population to sustain the economy. Slaves were perceived as humans and attitudes toward them were not as harsh as in the United States.
Brazilian society has long pursued a policy of assimilation, in which all peo­ple, including those of African descent, were expected to share a common cul­ture and to intermix physically as well as culturally. In contrast, in the United States the "melting pot" policies of assimilation applied to European Amer­icans, and perhaps Asian Americans, but not to African Americans. Many states had laws against miscegenation until recent decades. Cultural blend­ing was expected, but the intermarriage of Black and White Americans was not allowed. Despite more favorable attitudes resulting from the historical experiences described, Brazil has not completely eradicated prejudice. Most of the higher socioeconomic positions are filled by lighter-skinned peo­ple. As in the United States, the government is committed to pursue policies that reduce discrimination, but these policies are not very effective. Looking at other systems can often provide lessons about how to encour­age multiculturalism at a societal and an individual level. How can an indi­vidual become more multicultural?

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  Communicate with culturally heterophilous others. Seek friends who are culturally different from yourself. Travel. Learn languages other than your native tongue as a means of better understanding cultures in which these languages are spoken.
  
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  Work at understanding people unlike yourself. Reading about their culture may be helpful, but you can also learn by getting to know members of another culture on a personal basis. Go out of your way to develop close relationships with unalike others. Participate in intercultural and diversity training courses that help you become less ethnocentric and more understanding of unalike others.
  
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  Empathize with heterophilous others so that you can look at the world from their point of view. Be pluralistic and culturally relativis­ts. Do not think of ingroups and outgroups, but instead perceive of a continuum of cultural differences, such as on the basis of individu­alism/collectivism or other dimensions.
  
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  Capitalize on the natural curiosity that we all have in learning about other people who are different from us. Encourage your friends and family members to become multicultural. Set an appropriate exam­ple for them to follow.
  
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  Understand yourself, particularly your degree of ethnocentrism, prejudice, and stereotyping versus cultural relativism, tolerance, and understanding.
  
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  Recognize and appreciate the cultural differences among people in your environment.
  
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  Be nonjudgmental of others and their cultural values. (Everett Rogers & Thomas Steinfatt)