Understanding cultural diversity in the United States is vastly important when it comes to the modern dynamics and politics that shape the regions and the people who now inhabit and have inhabited the Western hemisphere long before initial European colonization as well the various ethnic groups that subsequently came afterwards in search of religious, political, and economic freedoms the vast American continent had to offer. With Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the year 1492, shortly after the Reconquista successfully vanquished and removed the Islamic Moors in the Iberian peninsula, the stage was set for newly discovered Western lands, thought to be Asia, to be converted to Catholicism and its riches plunged and purged, if not exploited,
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Henry Hudson an English explorer, in 1609 landed on Sandy Hook on behalf of the Dutch, who at the time had the greatest mercantile fleet in the world, however, it was not until 1624 when Dutch colonialist first settled on the island of Manhattan, which was inhabited by various tribes notably the Lenape and Munsee people who belong to the Algonquain family group. The Dutch founded New Amsterdam and before long the sprawling metropolis that is today New York City came to fruition, the history that ensued and unfolded contains battles over Independence and skirmishes with the British and ethical and moral dilemmas over chattel slavery. The need for the pluralism and its ideals and the understanding of the elements that lead to such a racially diversified nation are ones that should be embraced by all Americans in order to understand the context in which their daily lives and realities take place and the ideologies they, as well as myself, have internalized into what is the American collective …show more content…
With the American expansion into the West the displacement of Native Americans that had historically inhabited those regions for thousands of years caused tremendous strife and decimation of local and national populations. Wars with natives were constant and the building of the railroads by new immigrants such as the Irish and Chinese only added to the diversity found in America but also to the strife faced by the marginalized they faced. New narratives and old ones were being created and destroyed every single
Henry Hudson an English explorer, in 1609 landed on Sandy Hook on behalf of the Dutch, who at the time had the greatest mercantile fleet in the world, however, it was not until 1624 when Dutch colonialist first settled on the island of Manhattan, which was inhabited by various tribes notably the Lenape and Munsee people who belong to the Algonquain family group. The Dutch founded New Amsterdam and before long the sprawling metropolis that is today New York City came to fruition, the history that ensued and unfolded contains battles over Independence and skirmishes with the British and ethical and moral dilemmas over chattel slavery. The need for the pluralism and its ideals and the understanding of the elements that lead to such a racially diversified nation are ones that should be embraced by all Americans in order to understand the context in which their daily lives and realities take place and the ideologies they, as well as myself, have internalized into what is the American collective …show more content…
With the American expansion into the West the displacement of Native Americans that had historically inhabited those regions for thousands of years caused tremendous strife and decimation of local and national populations. Wars with natives were constant and the building of the railroads by new immigrants such as the Irish and Chinese only added to the diversity found in America but also to the strife faced by the marginalized they faced. New narratives and old ones were being created and destroyed every single