The Emerging Monoculture

by Watson, William E.

• ISBN13: 9780275973124
• ISBN10: 0275973123
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-02-28
• Publisher: Praeger Pub Text

Summary

Kramer brings together experts from a variety of "minority" backgrounds and from around the world to give their perspectives on the most pervasive ideology today, globalism. The basic premise is that a "developed" country is different from a "developed" community. They need not be mutually exclusive, but neither is it assumed that they are necessarily consonant. The various essays offer answers to such vital questions as "What does it mean to become a 'global citizen'?" and "What does it mean to be a 'model minority' in a global economy?" The process of becoming a "mainstream person" involves being first marginalized with the implication that something is inadequate about one's self. The process of assimilationism is manifested as various forms of enforced and/or rewarded acculturation. With the vast human migration currently underway, the notion of assimilation has become a global phenomenon. What is occurring, Kramer and his colleagues demonstrate, is a worldwide shift from the village milieu to the city lifestyle. This migration is seen as a polycentric and global phenomenon whereby the "promised land" is nowhere in particular, but, instead, a way of life and mindset, an urban lifestyle. This process is far more than a simple change in geography. Moving from the village to the cityscape involves a mutation in worldview and self-identity. Additional questions asked throughout the collection are "What set of persuasive assumptions are leading the world in this direction?" and "What might be lost in the process?" A provocative collection for scholars, students, and other researchers involved with development studies, multiculturalism, and urbanization.

Author Biography

MARK ERIC KRAMER is Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Oklahoma. He is a member of the editorial board of various journals and has published extensively. Among his latest books are Modern/Postmodern: Off the Beaten Path of Antimodernism and Postmodernism and Race.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction: Assimilation and the Model Minority Ideology	xi
Eric Mark Kramer
1. Gaiatsu and Cultural Judo
Eric Mark Kramer
2. The Hidden Justification for Assimilation, Multiculturalism, and the Prospects for Democracy	33	(8)
John W. Murphy and Luigi Esposito
3. Adopting the Caucasian "Look": Reorganizing the Minority Face	41	(34)
Masako Isa and Eric Mark Kramer
4. The Violence of Assimilation and Psychological Well-Being	75	(10)
Chi-Ah Chun and Jung Min Choi
5. The Ainu: A Discourse on Being Japanese	85	(25)
Masazumi Maruyama
6. Headache and Heartbreak: The Elusiveness of "Model Minority" Status Attainment for African Americans	110	(14)
Charlton D. Mcllwain and Lonnie Johnson Jr.
7. Being Disabled in Modern Japan: A Minority Perspective	124	(15)
Miho Iwakuma
8. Successful Indians: Benevolent Assimilation and Indian Identity	139	(20)
Karola, and Philip Lujan
9. Abandoned People in Japan: The First Generation of Koreans in Japan	159	(15)
Richiko Ikeda
10. Old and New Worlds	174	(17)
Algis Mickunas
11. Demythologizing the "Model Minority"	191	(12)
Eungjun Min
12. Asian Indians and the Model Minority Narrative: A Neocolonial System	203	(18)
Archana J. Bhatt
13. A World of Cookie-Cutter Faces	221	(13)
Rachael Rainwater-McClure, Weslynn Reed, and Eric Mark Kramer
14. Cosmopoly: Occidentalism and the New World Order	234	(59)
Eric Mark Kramer
Selected Bibliography	293	(16)
Name Index	309	(8)
Subject Index	317	(12)
Contributors	329