Writing about multicultural-ness

My English teacher gave us not one, not two, but three writing assignments over spring break. The first I have written, the second is half-done, and I'm not sure I remember what the third assignment is. In any case, the first essay is about a topic that sounds horribly sentimental, but I found it rather interesting once I took an unsentimental approach to it.

The question that the essay had to answer (more or less) was something like this: "What values are necessary for living in a multicultural society?"

I know, it sounds really vague and just begs for a sappy answer like 'We should all love each other, blah blah blah.' Using my bulletproof brain, however, I came up with a pragmatic answer.

The values that everyone in a multicultural society needs to keep things running smoothly are tolerance and respect. Tolerance, in this context, means allowing (or just ignoring) cultural practices that are unfamiliar but harmless. An example of tolerance in action is seen every holiday season in New York City. Christmas decorations pop up everywhere, and you would probably have a hard time finding a Jew who felt discriminated against by the big Christmas tree. In turn, the Christians of New York City tolerate their Jewish neighbors, so everyone gets along just fine (in the way New Yorkers get along, that is). Essentially, tolerance is like an antihistamine for society: it keeps people from reacting unnecessarily to harmless foreign things.

In this context, respect can be defined as understanding the value of another person's culture even if their practices are unfamiliar or strange. This is different from tolerance in some way that I can't quite recall at the moment. I think respect involves knowing when not to say something demeaning about someone else's cultural practices.

So that's my essay in a nutshell. You'll notice that it doesn't talk about "accepting" other cultures, and I have a reason for it. I think of acceptance as the adoption of certain aspects of another culture into one's life, and this usually only happens after a few generations of tolerance and respect have passed. Cultural hybridization is a wonderful thing (Japan is a shining example of this), but it is not strictly necessary for a society to function. A lack of tolerance, however, results in all manner of nasty things, and causes bad feelings on both sides.

What I find slightly amusing is the fact that I live in Hawaii, yet I wrote nothing about Hawaii's multicultural society. Native Hawaiian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, and white culture all come into contact here, but I am almost completely oblivious to them. I know the interaction is there, because people tell me about it, and it makes perfect sense, but I know next to nothing about any of them. The only thing I can think of concerning my personal dealings with other cultures here is the fact that I will never accept the practice of eating rice. I can tolerate and respect other people eating rice every freaking day, but I simply cannot stomach it.

The same goes for SPAM. Where I'm from (Northeastern USA), SPAM is practically a joke. Supermarkets always have maybe a dozen cans of SPAM on their shelves, but nobody actually buys it. It's just there so when little kids hear jokes about SPAM and ask their parents 'What's SPAM?', the parent can take them to the store and show them the can, and explain that it's not really for eating. Yet here in Hawaii, they actually eat it. A lot of it.

That is what I say.
What was I talking about?
I am hungry now.