“I believe our education system as a whole has not integrated the histories of all people into our education system, just the Eurocentric view of itself, and the White-centered view of African Americans, and even this is slim to nonexistent.”
Takaki’s novel focuses on the history of minority groups in America whose stories and histories have been on the sidelines for centuries. Despite the United States of America being a multicultural society, the mainstream history is mainly WASP-centric even in the academic curriculums. Even the explored history of the minority groups that is integrated into the system is expressed in a white-America perspective. Therefore, Takaki critiques this dynamic in the assertion while offering a different view on ethnic history of the United States from African Americans, Native Americans to Asian Americans.
“The study of diversity is essential for understanding how and why America became what Walt Whitman called a “teeming nation of nations.”
In the statement, Takaki extends his attitude towards the significance of studying the diverse ethnicities in America. Since United States is made up of different races, cultures, and ethnicities its essence is diversity. Multiculturalism is what makes the nation what it is thus Takaki stresses the importance of learning the histories of each group. The novel is an assortment of various accounts throughout histories that molded the identities of the minority groups.
“The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other.”
The overarching motif of the narrative is the ‘us against them’ hence it tackles how minorities have been marginalized by ‘white-America’ throughout history. The novel expresses the oppressive nature of the system and how it has continued to subjugate particular groups in the United States. Takaki highlights the various laws passed by the nation to relegate Asian-Americans, African Americans, and Native Americans for centuries.
