American Multiculturalism after 9 11: Transatlantic Perspectives (Amsterdam University Press - American Studies)

225 Pages·2009·1.38 MB·English

by  Derek Rubin

American Studies
R
This groundbreaking volume explores the multicultural debate that has evolved in the United ub A
i
States and Europe since the cataclysmic events of 9/11. Instead of suggesting closure by presen- n
m
|
ting a unifi ed narrative about cultural diversity, national identity, and social stratifi cation, the V
e e
essays in this well-balanced collection present a variety of perspectives, each highlighting the r
h
undiminished relevance of key issues such as immigration, assimilation, and citizenship, while eu ir
also pointing to unresolved confl icts over universalism, religion, and tolerance. Most importantly, l ( c
e
this volume shows that the struggle over multiculturalism is not limited to the political domain, d a
s
but also has profound cultural implications. American Multiculturalism after 9/11: Transatlantic .) n

Perspectives is an invaluable, thought-provoking addition to the debate about multiculturalism as
S
central to the study of the United States in a global context.
t
A u
Derek Rubin lectures in the American Studies Program at Utrecht University. m d
Jaap Verheul is associate professor of history and director of the American Studies Program e ei
at Utrecht University. r
s
i
c
a
n
These lively essays illuminate the ways in which multiculturalist initiatives in the United States and Europe

have infl uenced one another with a variety of productive as well as unproductive effects, especially since M
the events of 9/11. The authors vindicate the promise of American Studies as a scholarly domain in which u
l
the trend from a preoccupation with “identity” to a concern for “solidarity” can be charted and critically t
interrogated. ic
David A. Hollinger, author of Postethnic America: Beyond Multiculturalism u
l
t
The thirteen new essays assembled in this book make many fresh and often surprising contributions to u
r
understanding the theoretical issues surrounding multiculturalism, the effects of the terrorist attacks a
of 2001 on debates about American ethnic diversity and national unity, and European and transatlantic l
i
perspectives on migration and religious difference. s Derek Rubin and Jaap Verheul (eds.)
m
Werner Sollors, author of Beyond Ethnicity: Consent and Descent in American Culture and co-editor
of A New Literary History of America
a
f
t
American Multiculturalism after 9/11 is a timely and extremely important intervention in and reconfi guration e
of the debates over multiculturalism that took place after 9/11 on both sides of the Atlantic. r American Multiculturalism

Donald E. Pease, co-editor of Cultures of American Imperialism and The Futures of American Studies 9
/
1 after 9/11
1
Transatlantic Perspectives
www.aup.nl
A         U          P     A         U          P    
American Multiculturalism after 9/11
New Debates in American Studies
NewDebatesinAmericanStudiespresentsthematicessaycollectionsthat
articulatenewdirectionsinAmericanStudies,explorenewapproachesandareas
of research, and infuse the current scholarly debate with innovative methodolo-
giesandtheoreticalconcepts.
New Debates in American Studies is part of the Amsterdam University
Press series in American Studies, which publishes monographs and edited
volumesonAmericanhistory,society,politics,andculture.Theseriesisaforum
forgroundbreakingapproachesandareasofresearch,aswellaspioneeringscho-
larship that adds new insights into relatively established fields in the study of
America.
SeriesEditors:
DerekRubinandJaapVerheul,
UtrechtUniversity
American
Multiculturalism
after 9/11
Transatlantic Perspectives
Derek Rubin and Jaap Verheul
AmsterdamUniversityPress
TheeditorsgratefullyacknowledgefinancialsupportfromtheRoyalNetherlands
AcademyofArtsandSciences(KNAW),theNetherlandsAmericanStudiesAsso-
ciation (NASA), and the Research Institute for Culture and History (OGC) of the
Faculty of Humanities at Utrecht University. They also wishto thank Anne-Lieke
Struijk, who graciously performed the demanding and time-consuming task of
preparingtheindex.
Coverillustration:DanielHulshizer/AP/Reporters
Cover:Neon,designandcommunications,SabineMannell,Amsterdam
Design:JAPES,Amsterdam
ISBN 9789089641441
e-ISBN 9789048510757
NUR 686/763
©DerekRubinandJaapVerheul/AmsterdamUniversityPress,2009
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above,
no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both
thecopyrightownerandtheauthorofthebook.
Table of contents
DerekRubinandJaapVerheul
Introduction 7
Multicultural Boundary Crossings
PaulLauter
Multiculturalism and Immigration 23
RichardAlba
Native-ImmigrantBoundaries and Ethnic and Racial Inequalities 35
EdJonker
Coherence, Difference, and Citizenship: AGenealogy of
Multiculturalism 51
Cultural Reflections of theUnthinkable
RobKroes
Indecent Exposure:Picturing the Horror of9/11 67
PhillipE.Wegner
“The Dead AreOurRedeemers”:Culture, Belief, and United 93 81
MichanAndrewConnor
Real American Heroes: Attacking Multiculturalism through the
Discourse ofHeroic Sacrifice 93
MathildeRoza
“America under Attack”: Unityand Division after9/11 105
John-PaulColgan
“This Godless Democracy”: Terrorism, Multiculturalism, and
American Self-Criticism in John Updike 119
RachelHutchins-Viroux
Multiculturalism in American History Textbooks before and
after 9/11 133
5
Transatlantic Dialogues
PatrickHyderPatterson
AKinder, Gentler Europe? Islam, Christianity, and the
Divergent Multiculturalismsofthe New West 147
JohannaC.Kardux
Slavery, Memory, and Citizenship in TransatlanticPerspective 165
JaapKooijman
AreWe All Americans? 9/11 and Discourses of
Multiculturalism in the Netherlands 181
JaapVerheul
“How could this have happened in Holland?”
American Perceptions of Dutch Multiculturalism after 9/11 191
About the Contributors 207
Index 213
Introduction
Derek Rubin and Jaap Verheul
Within a month after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Lynne Cheney,
the wife of the Vice-President and former chairwoman of the National Endow-
mentfortheHumanities,publiclyattackededucatorswhohadsoughttopromote
multicultural teaching and internationalism as a response to rising anti-Ameri-
canism.ThenotionthatAmericansneededtolearnmoreaboutotherculturesin
the world, she argued, was tantamount to admitting “that the events of Septem-
ber 11th were our fault, that it was our failure to understand Islam that led to so
many deaths and so much destruction.” Instead of teaching diversity and toler-
ance, teachers from kindergarten to the top colleges and universities would do
bettertoconcentrateontheclassicsofworldhistoryand,mostofall,thehistory
of the American nation. The best way to understand the world in a time of na-
tionalcrisis,sheconcluded,wastoreadOfPlymouthPlantation,thewritingsofthe
foundingfathers,ortheheroicaccountsofAmericansoldiersduringWorldWar
IIbyStephenAmbrose.1
By unapologetically promoting national history and patriotism over diversity
and tolerance, Cheney advanced her long-standing agenda to steer the national
curriculum clear of multiculturalism. Her decision to assail what she called the
“multicultural argument” in the wake of this national disaster also made clear
that the ongoing debate over multiculturalism, diversity, and national identity
wasmorealivethanever,asAmericansstruggledtomakesenseof“9/11.”Ithas
beendebatedwhetherthisominousdatewasadecisiveturningpointinAmerican
and global history, or should be understood rather in the context of long-term
national and international developments and tensions.2 It certainly is true that
the American War onTerror, the invasionofIraq, and the ensuingdebate about
civillibertiesforwhichAbuGhraibandGuantánamoBaybecamecontestedsym-
bolsopenedanewchapterinalonghistoryofconstitutionalinterpretation.More
importantly, the terrorist attacks by radical Muslims of foreign origin led Ameri-
cans to recast their perceptions of diversity and assimilation within a national
framework, and at the same time to reevaluate the position of the United States
intheworld.
Cheney’s remarks are illustrative of several themes that are central to this vol-
ume.Hercombativeaccusationunambiguouslyremindsusofthehighlycontro-
versial and contingent nature of multiculturalism, a concept that can be said to
7
havedevelopedindialecticaloppositiontocompetingperspectivesoncitizenship
andpluralityinWesternsociety.Thebattlewasstillgoingon,sheseemedtosay.
Yet at the same time her argument made clear that both combatants and battle-
field had significantly changed after 9/11. The way she associated multicultural-
ismwiththeunderstandingofIslamandafailureto“encouragethestudyofour
past” in the context of Western civilization suggested a global perspective that
was new to the debate about cultural diversity. Both in the United States and
Western Europe, the term multiculturalism now became enlisted in the political
and academic discourses about the presence of Muslims within Western socie-
ties.3SincethishappenedindifferentwaysonthetwosidesoftheAtlantic,while
both trajectories retained many common elements and dialogical moments, it is
wellworthstudyingthesechangingapproachestomulticulturalismfromatrans-
atlanticperspective.
Multiple Multiculturalisms
AmericanmulticulturalismasaconceptforunderstandingandpromotingAmer-
icandiversityhasalwaysbeencontingentandcontroversial.AsDavidTheoGold-
bergconvincinglyarguesintheintroductiontohisseminalanthology,Multicultur-
alism: A Critical Reader, its development can be understood as a reaction to
assimilationist, monocultural claims that had become the dominant and hardly
disputed discourse in the United States. Interestingly, Goldberg suggests that
this American monoculturalism was deeply informed by European cultural no-
tions of high culture. Based on a common transatlantic heritage, this “deeply
ethnoracializedEurovision”wasnowusedintheUnitedStatestosupportdomes-
tic and geopolitical hegemony in a time of Cold War and imperialism. Multicul-
turalism emerged in the 1960s as a multiform revolt “against the monocultural
grain.”Fittingly,asatermthatreferredtopluralityanddifference,multicultural-
ism lacked consistency and unity. In fact, Goldberg emphatically warns against
anyattempttoreducethe“multiculturalcondition”thatemergedinpolitics,edu-
cation,andmanyotherdiscoursestoasingledefinition.4
Multiculturalism, indeed, has many genealogies. It is informed by well-estab-
lished notions about citizenship and assimilation, by the Civil Rights Movement
and the other emancipatory movements that promoted identity politics, and by
the culturalturn thathastransformedthe humanities since the 1960s.Originally
mostly used to describe accommodating policy directives that attempted to cope
withcultural,ethnic,and linguistic diversity intraditional immigrationcountries
such as Canada, Australia, and the United States, the term multiculturalism be-
camewidelyusedinmanydifferentdiscourseswhereitwasassignedavarietyof
meanings. It can be described as a policy-oriented movement that promotes a
“multiculturalsociety”markedbyracial,cultural,andethnicdiversity.AsCharles
Taylor points out, rather than aiming for greater social and economic equality,
8 americanmulticulturalismafter9/11
the movement has been driven as much by the “politics of recognition,” forcing
societyatlargetorecognizeand“incorporate”theseminoritiesonanequalfoot-
ing.5
Multiculturalism also forcefully and divisively entered the American university
campus.Itbecamearallyingcryfornewacademicprogramsfocusedonminority
and “subaltern” groups. It also paved the way for new expressions of esthetic
appreciation in literary studies and forms of moral and emotional approval in
cultural studies. Fiction writers from many different cultural backgrounds were
included in textbooks and anthologies of American literature that found their
way into the academic curriculum. Moreover, multiculturalism gradually devel-
opedintoapoliticaltheorythatwasanalyzedandcanonizedinanumberofinflu-
ential scholarly studies published in the last decade of the twentieth century by
various political philosophers.6 Each introduced changing sets of adjectives to
differentiatebetweenallthesemanifestationsofmulticulturalambitions,suchas
soft and hard; assimilationist and radical; conservative, liberal, and critical; and
corporate and incorporating. Behind this plurality of “concerns and considera-
tions,principlesandpractices,conceptsandcategories,”however,multicultural-
ism is most of all a fundamental Weltanschauung, an all-encompassing view of
society, which Parekh describes as “a perspective on human life.”7 In all its
guises,itisaperspectiveonpowerandhierarchyinWesternsociety.
Although even the conservative sociologist Nathan Glazer sarcastically con-
ceded in 1995 that “We Are All Multiculturalists Now,” the new call for diversity
hadinfactalreadybeenforcefullydisputedfromseveraldirections.8Conservative
authorssuchas Allan Bloom andDinesh D’Souza had lamented the demise of a
shared cultural tradition and sense of common American identity, and Samuel
Huntington had singled out multiculturalism as the most “immediate and dan-
gerous challenge” to the American creed and Western civilization which, if left
unopposed, could lead to “the end of the United States of America as we have
known it.” Multiculturalism was very much at the heart of the culture wars that
broke out when the United States entered the “multicultural decade” of the
1980s.9 The champions of cultural and ethnic diversity had also drawn friendly
fire from more left-leaning intellectuals, such as Arthur Schlesinger and Todd
Gitlin,whofearedthattheculturalturnwouldharmegalitarianagendasandlib-
eral coalitions. Liberal thinkers more fundamentally warned that the cultural es-
sentialistandparticularisticaspectsofmulticulturalismchallengedtheuniversal-
istandtolerantachievementsoftheEnlightenmentproject.10Indeed,someliberal
scholars,suchasDavidHollingerandtheso-calledmulti-racialtheorists,hadbe-
guntoseeknew,alternativemodelsforAmericansocietythatwentbeyondmulti-
culturalism. In the field of literary studies, champions of multiculturalism, such
as Emory Elliott, explored the possibility of introducing a new esthetics into the
hithertohighlypoliticizeddebateaboutthemulticulturalcanon.11
introduction 9