U.S. Culture and Multiculturalism

At Osaka Jogakuin University (大阪女学院大学), I teach Bilingualism and Intercultural Communication classes. I was born in Boston, so I will show you some photos. However, in graduate school, I specialized in Japan at the University of Hawaii. Fall season in Boston The cultural area of Boston around Northeastern University, where I studied physics and philosophy. World Cultural Map according to differences in values Based on E.T. Hall’s Cultural Iceberg Model (1976). Parts of a culture that you can see are not as important as parts that are hard to see. Therefore, Hall taught that the only way to learn the internal culture of others is to actively participate in their culture. We need to get to know individuals from that culture. Comparing countries according to Hofstede’s cultural dimensions. E.g., the U.S. is most individualistic, Thailand is collectivistic, and Japan is near the average or balanced (Shaules & Abe, 2007, p.5). Immigrants from Japan are only about 1% of the U.S. population, and they live in relatively safe, wealthy areas (compare next map). The U.S. has extremes of wealth and poverty, safe and unsafe areas. Most murders take place in poor areas of cities, usually killing people they know. There are also mass killings at schools and other public places by disturbed individuals who can buy military rifles. Factors such as the frontier tradition of rough individualism make the problem too hard to solve. Wealthier people are in a better position to avoid the gun violence and crime. The U.S. leads the world in power and wealth, largely thanks to immigrants. Because all kinds of people from around the world live in the U.S., it is difficult to say in general what American culture is. You would have to look to history, geography, and legal traditions such as the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Immigrants keep coming to the U.S. because they can find better education, work, and quality of life. The U.S. is multicultural, and there are always new combinations. Some people enjoy the diversity, while cultural conservatives oppose immigration, greater freedom for women, and other social changes. In Japan also, individuals are free to like foreigners or not. But the U.S. is divided, not united, and there are many challenges. 11 different cultural regions in North America (Woodard, 2018) to consider.