America's Multicultural Society

Why is America’s society considered successfully multicultural when one cannot complete a legal form without the question of race being one of the first questions asked? Why must one be classified as Black, White, Asian, Hispanic, or Other if there is only one race in America; American? This is one of the issues that come along with America having a multicultural society. But, this is not to be mistaken as saying that there are only negative effects that come from America’s multicultural society. There are also positive effects, most of which nearly outweigh the negatives. An author by the name of Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. wrote a disputable book titled The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society to address these effects,

The main point that Schlesinger is trying to express is that America’s multiculturalism has had many divergent effects on its society. The author develops this idea so effectively that it is near impossible to miss. In the foreword, Schlesinger leads the reader into the book by explaining how America came to be multicultural. At the end of the foreword, he warns that we must not destroy the multiculturalism by becoming divided into sub-cultures based on ethnicity. In the following chapters, he talks on multiple aspects of the effects of America’s multiculturalism such as its effects how history is written or how it effects our schools. Now while there aren’t any counterpoints to his actually thesis, he does address how everyone does not agree on every topic. For instance, in chapter 1 “A New Race” he speaks on how some people feel that America shouldn’t have just one race and should be divided into groups based on their ancestors. The research and scholarship that Schlesinger uses supports his thesis outstandingly seeing as he uses sources that support both sides of an argument to show that multiculturalism has had many conflicting