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Australia and Cultural Assimilation

4 Pages 1020 Words September 2018

Cultural assimilation, what is it I hear you ask? Don’t worry I did the same thing and it only causes me more headaches. It is a process of consistent integration whereby members of an ethno-cultural group are ‘absorbed’ into an established, generally larger community and presumes the loss of many characteristics of the absorbed group. I suppose the reason that I chose this topic is that of the overarching theme of cultural assimilation has been in the media recently, especially with talk of banning the burqa and niqab. Cultural assimilation has been practiced for as long as different groups of people have been fighting with the victor, imposing their rules, beliefs, and way of life on the losers. This westernization has been forced upon these people with the expectation that when they leave their country and come to Australia, they must follow all of the rules including the ones that Australian society enforce upon emigrational groups. Australia needs to invest their time into the idea of multiculturalism instead of the assimilation of cultures.
Assimilation is currently not feasible in a country that is looking to diversify and embrace other cultures to enrich the Australian culture. Cultural assimilation is often referred with the ‘melting pot’ metaphor which occurs when a society of many different types of people blend as one whereas multiculturalism is often referred with the ‘mosaic’ metaphor which is the mix of ethnic groups, languages, and cultures that coexist within society. One should ask, do we want to be ‘melting’ each other’s unique cultural heritages into a consistent cultural stew? The answer is no! We want Australia to embrace the different cultures and use them to grow ours better. The idea of assimilation unrealistically expects immigrants to shed their cultural heritage. Often with the expectation that recently immigrated people moving to a country will shed major parts of their cultures and ...

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