A SOCIETY FULL OF MULTICULTURAL INDIVIDUALS



With a growing anti-Islamization sentiment across Europe and xenophobia fanned by far right groups growing in popularity, the question of HOW European societies could integrate their immigrants and embrace diversity without losing culture and identity of the nation has become more urgent than ever. While immigrant nations such as America have had to confront the issue of multiculturalism from much earlier on, behind its image as a dynamic melting pot, it is at the brink of retrogressing to the hierarchical and segregationist past, rather than progressing towards inclusive and egalitarian ideals. Jayon You, in this collection of 24 critical & personal essays, uses her own experience of immigration to America at the age of thirteen & what gave her a resolution on the questions of belonging, identity & relationship between cultures as a critical frame for illuminating the issue of multiculturalism both in the context of Europe & America: what facilitates integration of immigrants & what we mean by 'integration' anyway; HOW a society could embrace diversity without losing culture & identity of the nation; HOW we can create 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.