How do we create an inclusive & egalitarian society in which diversity is not merely tolerated or managed but fully harnessed as a thriving lived experience for enrichment of everyone involved & benefit of the society as a whole?

 

Despite progress made over the last decades, MULTICULTURALISM still remains an enduring challenge, all the more urgent as we stand at the junction of retrogressing to the homogeneous & hierarchical past rather than progressing towards egalitarian, inclusive & plural ideals.

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In A SOCIETY FULL OF MULTICULTURAL INDIVIDUALS, a collection of 24 critical & personal essays, Jayon You uses her own experience of immigration to America at the age of thirteen as a critical frame for illuminating HOW we can move beyond where we stand now towards creating a a truly multicultural society in which diversity is not merely tolerated or managed but fully harnessed as a thriving lived experience for enrichment of everyone involved & benefit of society as a whole​.

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She introduces a thrilling concept of 'multicultural individual,' which not only gave her a resolution on the questions of belonging, identity & relationship between cultures upon her immigration to America, but how she sees the concept holding the key in moving us beyond where we stand now towards creating a truly multicultural society. 

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In the process, she clarifies some of the most urgent questions of our time: ​what facilitates integration of immigrants & what we mean by 'integration' anyway; HOW a society could embrace diversity without losing culture, identity & solidarity of the nation & HOW the 'values' of a host nation & the 'values' that immigrants bring can be harmoniously reconciled, HOW the comparative context of an immigrant nation from its inception vs. an ethnic nation with a growing diversity can help inform each other.