User:Sdaph8/sandbox

= Anglo-conformity = Anglo-conformity is known as the phenomenon attributed to the propensity immigrants and non-native groups have to ignore (and/or reject) their own cultural heritage and conform to that of their colonisers - namely Anglo-American and Anglo-Saxon cultural practices. This pattern is seemingly a result of a multicultural world that is still largely influenced by the cultural practices of the English, French, and Spanish settlers.

A person's tendency to conform stems from them being social animals with a basic need to belong within a society, and an unwillingness to do so may result in rejection and/or ejection from aforementioned cultural group.

Americanisation
Carried out with great effort and determination, this movement was coordinated to turn immigrants into "real" Americans. It included American dialect, speech, customs, ideals, traditions, and ceremonies into educational programs that would serve as an instruction manual for immigrants to cultivate themselves into American citizens. Additionally, the term was also utilised in discourse about national identity and citizenship.

Neocolonialism, neo-colonialism, or Neo-imperialism is the convention of exerting capitalism, globalisation, and cultural imperialism on a less economically developed country (LEDC) in order to direct military control or indirect political control. This method is used as a replacement of the other traditional colonial methods.

President Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt went on to describe, in his books American Ideals and The Strenuous Life, Americans and American culture, and how they should be."'There was scant room for the coward and the weakling in the ranks of the adventurous frontiersmen - the pioneer settlers who first broke up the wild prairie soil, who first hewed their way into the primeval forest, who guided their white-topped wagons across the endless leagues of Indian-haunted desolation, and explored every remote mountain-chain in the restless quest for metal wealth.'"Roosevelt believed that America "cannot effort to have its sons less than men" and expected all immigrants to forget their ethnic customs and devote themselves to being American. "He must revere only our flag; not only must it come first, but no other flag should even come second."

Americanisation became even more prevalent in the years immediately after the World War I as the concept of the melting pot was associated with complete conformity at once. The Anglo-American norm had been established, and immigrants that opposed these ideals or rebelled against them were condemned for disloyalty to the States and fellow "real Americans." This concept meant that Americanisation was regarded as the same as the melting pot and assimilation theory by many.

The Melting Pot
The United States is called the 'Melting Pot' because of the concept of the American Dream - the ideology that every citizen of the United States of America has an equal opportunity to acquire economic success and to prosper based solely on their rigour and amount of labour they perform. Immigrants migrate to the States with this goal in mind to escape terrorism, inequality, and oppression.

This metaphor of the melting pot extends well beyond its original implication, and refers not only to the merging of different cultures, but the intermarriage of people from different ethnicities. However, cultural assimilation can still take place in the absence of intermarriage.

=== The Propaganda Model === According to Dr. Noam Chomsky, the mass media functions as a "system for communicating messages and symbols to the general populace." It is their job to educate their viewers about the cultural codes of behavior that society functions by and instil in them the values and beliefs of institutional structures of a larger society. Because of the class differences and wealth disparity that exists in the world, systematic propaganda is required to achieve a functioning society.


 * 1) Size, Ownership, and Profit Orientation of the Mass Media: The First Filter
 * 2) The Advertising License to do Business: The Second Filter
 * 3) Sourcing Mass-Media News: The Third Filter
 * 4) Flack and the Enforcers: The Fourth Filter
 * 5) Anticommunism as a Control Mechanism: The Final Filter

The first filter is about contact with the large corporations. There are six companies that own the majority of American mass media, and they control what content is being published and broadcasted. The second filter suggests that what is being published and broadcasted has to first be authorised by the advertisement corporations. The third filter is interconnected with the first as the main sources are produced by the six large corporations. The fourth filter acts as a sieve to assess what content is acceptable for public viewing. The fifth and final filter acts as a control to refine what content is allowed into the world.

Whiteness and the Melting Pot
American national identity has been largely associated with whiteness since the 17th century. This sense of identity has been centred upon the assimilation of white immigrant groups, and has been heavily researched and documented by the field of whiteness studies. The "social construction of whiteness" has been examined extensively and linked back to immigration patterns and ways in which the normative identity of an American has evolved.

In the 1890s, there was an exodus of Southern and Eastern European immigrants (from Italy, Greece, and Poland). This continued well into the early and mid 20th century, and though many immigrant groups eventually returned to their home countries, most chose to remain in the United States and adopt an American lifestyle. However, East Asian immigrants received a strikingly different response. They were greeted with extreme amounts of hostility, and thoughnew laws in the 1880s attempted to prevent them from leaving Asia, they emigrated illegally. This animosity lead to the emergence of "Chinatowns" or "ethnic enclaves" where immigrants were forced to live segregated from the populations of their new country.

Existing Americans and scholars did not know how to approach the melting pot and the arrival of immigrants. The theory was still the topic of widespread debate, and people were not sure how immigration would impact existing American society. The people's position regarding the melting pot tethered between completely assimilating into another culture or adopting mannerisms from every ethnicity and forming something different, a new equilibrium.

Nativists partook in an organised course of action to limit means of entry to the melting pot. According to them, too many "undesirables" had already arrived into their culturally superior country, and allowing access to more inferior groups would challenge the well constructed image of the Americans. This lead to a series of immigration laws being established that discouraged immigration from the 1920s onward. It was stated that apart from the reuniting of families, new immigrants were required to match ethnic profiles with existing citizens of the nation as of that period in time and national quotas were set in place for citizens emigrating from Italy, Poland, and Russia, whereas citizens from Germany, Britain, and Ireland were provided with support to resettle.

Assimilation Theory
Assimilation theory, or cultural assimilation, is the process by which a minority cultural group begins to resemble a dominant group, or come to have the beliefs, behaviours, and values of a dominant group. The etymological derivation of the word describes assimilation theory to the likes of acculturation. Assimilation could also involve  'additive acculturation' wherein, individuals adopt aspects of the dominant culture to expand their existing cultural identity.

This 'assimilation' could vary from an instantaneous to a gradual absorption depending on the situation and the group's current sense of cultural identity, 'Full' or 'complete' assimilation is when a cultural sub-group adapts completely and becomes virtually indistinguishable from the dominant group.

The circumstances surrounding a potential assimilation involve a dialogue between the members of the minority group and those of the dominant society. Assimilation does not automatically result in social parity. Other natural barriers between cultures, including those of a geographical nature, may still exist after the assimilation process is complete. The process may be voluntary, or involuntary. A culture may spontaneously dissolve into a more dominant one; or an otherwise older and more established culture can compel a culture into adapting.

Assimilation is not only used in reference to indigenous groups, but also immigrants that have moved to a new geographical region. Different attitudes are formed via contact and communication with the dominant culture. This is followed by accommodation and acceptance into the parent culture. It is not limited or bound by specific regions, but rather a world-wide phenomenon that occurs across the globe.

Ethnocentrism
Ethnocentrism is the practice of evaluating another cultures using the preconceptions and values of one's own as a baseline. Aspects like language, behaviour, customs, and religion are common factors that are taken into consideration. These are the categories that differentiate each ethnicity's unique cultural identity.

According to social scientist William G. Sumner, ethnocentrism is "the reasons by virtue of which each group of people believed it had always occupied the highest point, not only among contemporaneous peoples and nations, but also in relation to all peoples of the historical past."

This vision differs for every ethnic group and alters what one may consider the 'norm.' If people are raised in a particular culture, then those views and practices will hail dominant and their worldview will have those at its epicentre. The will evaluate different thought and behaviour patterns as ones that either fit, or don't fit. It can be difficult for these people to adopt a different point of view.

Asiacentrism
Asiacentrism, as a concept, arose in the late 20th century when the continent of Asia (for the most part, China) economically and culturally dominated the rest of the world. This concept's main notion is regarding Asia to be the most superior nation and that the rest of the world should function with it as a central point of cultural and economic reference.

Originally proposed as an appraisal of the Eurocentric theories and their wide blankets of influence, Paul Wong, Takeo Hirota Wong, and Meera Manvi wrote "Thinking Theory in Asian American Studies" for Amerasia Journal presenting their own version of an Asia-centric world. According to Wong, Hirota Wong, and Manvi, the need to understand Asian traditions and thought processes is required to acquire a better, more wholistic sense of Asian American behaviour and to expand the theories of knowledge between justified belief and opinion in regard to human behaviour. This model is a worldview generated underlying the theories and methodologies that inquire into the common values at the core of Asian peoples and cultures, and how these views influence communities; its aim is not to draw attention to or explore parallels between antitheses like 'dynamic Europe' and 'static Asia' or 'mystic East' and 'scientific West'. Wong, Hirota Wong, and Manvi strongly believe that Asiacentrism's postcolonial perspective offers a nuanced and more hyperaware view if international cultural relations. They argue that Asian American studies have "permitted itself to be conceptually incarcerated in a hegemonic Eurocentric culture and world view." Further, they present that in accordance to angloconformity, the English language acts as a "lingua franca" in the realm of Asian American Studies, wherein it is clearly seen and understood that the ability to speak at least one Asian language (be it as a first language or a second language) as a merit but rather assess themselves based on their ability to speak English - thereby reducing their communications and research within the community to strictly anglo-centric approaches.

Wong, Manvi, and Wong believe that exploring Asiacentrism as a field of study is a method of combining Asian American Studies and Asian Studies by accepting the truth of identifying with their postcolonial identities, common cultural points of reference, and indigenous roots. They have heavily emphasised examining Eurocentric legacies and its role in the possible decolonisation of Asian Studies. It is contended that the development of this paradigm is contingent on the Euro-American colonial history in Asia and its deep and clearly evident impact on scholarship in the field of Asian and Anglo Studies. The Eurocentric view - that has previously been widely accepted without question - has only been interrogated in more recent decades. According to Wong, Manvi, and Wong, "By proposing the development of an Asiacentric perspective, it is being consciously suggested that Asian American Studies further maintains a role to play in a field of Asian Studies stripped of its colonial legacy."