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Conclusion Embracing the Future of Mestizo Democracy
- Texas A&M University Press
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• Conclusion Conclusion Embracing the Future of Mestizo Democracy T he preceding seven chapters have been an odyssey through which I have tried to pinpoint both the basis and justification for a mestizo democracy that can constructively engage the challenges posed by diversity from the local to the transnational arenas. In these concluding reflections, I synthesize the themes that weave in and out of these very distinct chapters and suggest further research directions for those willing to pursue the challenge of articulating a substantive sense of community through multicultural relations . Mestizaje as a U.S. American Experience Multiculturalism in terms of ethnicity, language,race,and religion is a given in the United States but is also increasingly a worldwide phenomenon, as advances in telecommunications and transportation networks, as well as increases in the number and complexity of intersections in the global economy, bring the world’s peoples into greater contact with one another. The United States in the first decade of the twenty-first century is more multicultural than at any other time in its history, and population forecasts for the next few decades suggest this trend will persist, if not grow. As the twenty-first century proceeds, the long-standing distinction between the majority population of European Americans and minority populations of African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans will Conclusion • become dated (as is already the case in states such as California, Florida, and Texas),given the decreasing percentage of European Americans vis-à-vis the nation’s population.As I argued in the discussions on migration and globalization in chapter , more and more of us increasingly have identities connected to multiple regions and cultures from across the globe. The crucial question is not whetherat the local,national,or transnational level we will have to deal with multiculturalism but,rather,how we will deal with this reality: “As more and more cultures meet and encounter one another ,it becomes evident that the future is indeed mestizo,but what kind of mestizaje will it produce?”1 The future clearly holds a heightened mixing of cultures, but will this mixing ensue according to democratic norms of justice ? Unless we are vigilant in ensuring that equality of opportunity does not privilege any particular ethnic, linguistic, or racial group, a dichotomy between empowered and unempowered cultural groups may very well emerge, with the latter being heavily comprised by peoples of color. A mestizo democracy, therefore, not only projects how multiple cultures can mutually intersect and transform one another,but emphasizes that the terms on which multiple cultures intersect—collaboration as opposed to domination ,lateral as opposed to vertical,and open-ended as opposed to“tightlyscripted ”—are a measure of how genuinely democratic we are. A mestizo democracy overcomes the prevailing unum-pluribus divide when it comes to dealing with this growing reality of multiculturalism in the United States and elsewhere. As reviewed in chapter , our prevailing conceptual schemes argue either for assimilation as in the “melting pot” or for some form of separatism or “utter diversity.” These antipodes share a possessive, as opposed to a relational, notion of personal or cultural identity ; supposedly, one is either “this” culture or “that,” with no room left for the possibility of mixing cultures—the mezcolanza (mixture) and otredad (otherness) accented by Segovia. By contrast, a mestizo democracy envisions personal, cultural, and political relationships as being steeped in the intersubjectivity underscored in phenomenology and hermeneutics and in the relational character of life emphasized by the affective, aesthetic rationality articulated by Vasconcelos and refined by the Latino theologians reviewed in chapters and . Rather than seeing the mixing of cultures as a “problem,”a mestizo democracy renders such mixing as intrinsic to human relationships and indispensable for cultivating the well-being of the community , as well as that of each of its members. But there are other competitors for reinvigorating a sense of national political community. As I reviewed in chapter , Geyer’s and Schlesinger’s [3.237.0.123] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 13:48 GMT) • Conclusion individualist renderings of U.S. liberal democracy are much too Eurocentric in terms of intellectual heritage to engage multicultural reality constructively. In Barber’s case, although his indictment of the universalizing consumer inclinations of“McWorld”is well taken,his call for a revitalization of nationstates is too acultural in approach to realize his credible democratic aims. More so than in the case of these other perspectives, however, the strengths and drawbacks of Bellah’s communitarianism put into relief the merits...