Dear Editor:

I am writing in reference to the Sept. 30 column written by Brian Schroeder. Mr. Schroeder seems to blame multiculturalism for the division in our country. Yes, our country does have some English and European roots as Mr. Schroeder quotes Ed Koch as saying. That quote continues, “the early settlers were European and Americans who shared a common heritage of cultural values, language and tradition.”

The unmanipulated truth of the past is the Native Americans were already here when the Mayflower arrived, and they have their own languages, cultural values and traditions. The English and European immigrants did not embrace the Native American languages, cultural values and traditions although they were the original inhabitants of America. Why should we only embrace the language, cultural values and traditions of the first European immigrants who arrived here?

My grandparents came to this country in the early 1900s speaking Croatian and Slovak. They brought their language, cultural values and traditions of their birth countries with them. Many others came to America from many other nations bringing their languages, cultural values and traditions with them. Another part of our history is the many thousands who were forcefully brought to this country from Africa to be slave workers. They brought their languages, cultural values and traditions with them.

The fact and unmanipulated truth is our country has roots made up of many different cultures, cultural values, races, ethnicities and traditions. Our children need to be taught that all of this is part of our history and part of who we are. It would be a disservice to them to cancel out and ignore our differences. They need to be taught that everything has not been equal or fair-and-square for all of these cultural, ethnic and racial groups over the years as the dominant political culture has been white, middle class, Protestant of northern European descent.

Most of us are not descendants of the immigrants who came to America on the Mayflower, but we are as much a part of this great nation as they and we all deserve to be acknowledged, accepted and celebrated. The unmanipulated truth is the United States is a multicultural country. One more thing: maybe our divisiveness stems from our current society’s acceptance of disrespectfulness, hateful rhetoric and name-calling, which has become very prevalent.

Sincerely,

Pat Winlow

Cody