Polyethnicity

The United States is a nation founded by different ethnicities frequently described as coming together in a "melting pot," a term used to emphasize the degree to which constituent groups influence and are influenced by each other, or a "salad bowl," a term more recently coined in contrast to the "melting pot" metaphor and emphasizing those groups' retention of fundamentally distinct identities despite their proximity to each other and their influence on the overall culture that all of those groups inhabit.[19]

A controversial political issue in recent years has been the question of bilingualism.[20] Many immigrants have come from Hispanic America, who are native Spanish speakers, in the past centuries and have become a significant minority and even a majority in many areas of the Southwest.[7][21] In New Mexico the Spanish speaking population exceeds 40%.[7][22] Disputes have emerged over language policy, since a sizeable part of the population, and in many areas the majority of the population, speak Spanish as a native language.[20]

The biggest debates are over bilingual education for language minority students, the availability of non-English ballots and election materials and whether or not English is the official language.[20][23][24] It has evolved into an ethnic conflict between the pluralists who support bilingualism and linguistic access and the assimilationists who strongly oppose this and lead the official English movement.[25] The United States does not have an official language, but English is the de facto national language and is spoken by the overwhelming majority of the country's population.[26]

Canada has had many political debates between the French speakers and English speakers, particularly in the province of Quebec.[27] Canada holds both French and English as official languages.[28] The politics in Quebec are largely defined by nationalism as French Québécois wish to gain independence from Canada as a whole, based on ethnic and linguistic boundaries.[29] The main separatist party, Parti Québécois, attempted to gain sovereignty twice (once in 1980 and again in 1995) and failed by a narrow margin of 1.2% in 1995.[30] Since then, in order to remain united, Canada granted Quebec statut particulier, recognizing Quebec as a nation within the united nation of Canada.[31]

The divide between the Dutch-speaking north (Flanders) and the French-speaking South (Wallonia) has caused the parliamentary democracy to become ethnically polarized.[32] Though an equal number of seats in the Chamber of Representatives are prescribed to the Flemish and Walloons, Belgian political parties have all divided into two ideologically identical but linguistically and ethnically different parties.[32] The political crisis has grown so bad in recent years that the partition of Belgium has been feared.[33]

Ethiopia is a polyethnic nation consisting of 80 different ethnic groups and 84 indigenous languages.[34][35] The diverse population and the rural areas throughout the nation made it nearly impossible to create a strong centralized state, but it was eventually accomplished through political evolution.[36] Prior to 1974, nationalism was discussed only within radical student groups, but by the late 20th century, the issue had come to the forefront of political debate.[37][38]

Ethiopia was forced to modernize their political system to properly handle nationalism debates.[38] The Derg military government took control with a Marxist–Leninist ideology, urging self-determination and rejecting compromise over any nationality issues.[39] In the 1980s, Ethiopia suffered a series of famines and after the USSR broke apart, it lost their aid from the Soviet Union and the Derg government collapsed.[39] Eventually Ethiopia restabilized and adopted a modern political system that models a federal parliamentary republic.[40]

It was still impossible to create a central government holding all power and so the government was torn.[41] The central federal government now presides over ethnically-based regional states and each ethnic state is granted the right to establish their own government and democracy.[42]

In Spain from 1808 to 1814, the Spanish War of Independence took place in a multicultural Spain.[43] Spain, at the time, was under the control of King Joseph, who was Napoleon I of France's brother.[43] Because the nation was under the control of French rule, the Spanish formed coalitions of ethnic groups to reclaim their own political representation to replace the French political system then in power.[43]

Southeast Asia countries, 2009-10-10

In Southeast Asia the continental area (Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam) generally practices Theravada Buddhism.[44] Most of insular Southeast Asia (namely Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia) practices mostly Sunni Islam.[45] The rest of the insular region (Philippines and East Timor) practices mostly Roman Catholic Christianity and Singapore practises mostly Mahayana Buddhism.[45]

Significant long-distance labor migration that occurred during the late 19th century and the early 20th century provided many different types of ethnic diversity.[46] Relations between the indigenous population of the region arose from regional variations of cultural and linguistic groups.[46] Immigrant minorities, especially the Chinese, then developed as well.[46] Although there were extreme political differences for each minority and religion, they were still legitimate members of political communities, and there has been a significant amount of unity throughout history.[47] This differs from both nearby East and South Asia.[47]

An increase in intermarriage in the United States has led to the blurring of ethnic lines.[2] Anti-miscegenation laws (laws banning interracial marriages) were abolished in the United States in 1967 and now it is estimated that one-fifth of the population in the United States by 2050 will be part of the polyethnic population.[48] In 2000, self-identified Multiracial Americans numbered 6.8 million or 2.4% of the population.[7][49]

While the number of interethnic marriages is on the rise, there are certain ethnic groups that have been found more likely to become polyethnic and recognize themselves with more than one ethnic background. Bhavani Arabandi states in his article on polyethnicity that:

Asians and Latinos have much higher rates of interethnic marriages than do blacks, and they are more likely to report polyethnicity than blacks who more often claim a single ethnicity and racial identity. This is the case, the authors [Lee, J & Bean, F.D] argue, because blacks have a "legacy of slavery," a history of discrimination, and have been victimized by the "one drop rule" (where having any black blood automatically labeled one as black) in the US.[2]

Maj. Gen. William B. Garrett III, commander of U.S. Army Africa, Gen. Nyakayirima Aronda, Chief of Defense Forces, Ugandan People's Defense Force and Gen. Jeremiah Kianga, Chief of General Staff, Kenya, render honors during the opening ceremony for Natural Fire 10, Kitgum, Uganda, Oct. 16, 2009.

Presently, most armed forces are composed of people from different ethnic backgrounds.[14] They are considered to be polyethnic due to the differences in race, ethnicity, language or background.[50] While there are many examples of polyethnic forces, the most prominent are among the largest armed forces in the world, including those of the United States, the former USSR and China.[14] Polyethnic armed forces are not a new phenomenon; multi-ethnic forces have been in existence since the ancient Roman Empire, Middle Eastern Empires and even the Mongol Khans.[50] The U.S. Military was one of the first modern militaries to begin ethnic integration, by order of President Truman in 1945.[51]