Serena Reavis
ENG 111-0003S
4 June 2013

America: A Multinational Society

The American author Ishmael Reed has written numerous novels, poems, and essays. In his essay, “America: A Multinational Society” Reed argues that America is viewed as a monocultural society, yet we cannot be monocultural because we are a nation of immigrants. Reed provides many arguments and examples from past and present-day America that prove America is a melting pot of cultures, and therefore is already a multinational society.
Reed states that in any major city in America you can see evidence of this mixing of nationalities and cultures. For example, you can find Islamic mosques and hear airport commands in both English and Spanish. The mixing of nationalities and cultures is a growing movement that if or when it continues, will affect the majority of our country in just a few years. Already in Texas the largest minority, population is Mexican American. Reed goes on to talk about how, in Milwaukee, he heard a professor speak to a crowd about the African cultures’ influence in America, in an African language (instead of their native tongue of English). In this same city, another example of the mixing of cultures comes at a most unexpected place, the local McDonald’s. At this restaurant, the manager has hung paintings that depict African symbols and images. Even with all of this evidence of a mixing of cultures, Reed asserts that the “cultural Elect” of our country still holds on to the idea that America is a civilization created only by the European, or “western” culture. This stance taken by the cultural Elect can be seen as monoculture. Reed states that even this view is skewed because what we view as “western civilization” (Beethoven, nineteenth- and twentieth- century French artists, etc.) was already being influenced by other cultures. One of Beethoven’s most famous