Multicultural Matrix paper - Essay Example

Advantages of Multicultural People within the Labor Force The movements concerning multiculturalism and labor force are two distinct entities or discourses. Although both are affected and perhaps effected by certain economic paradigm or system, multiculturalism and labor movements are fundamentally varied. In contrasting these two movements or facets, the former is embedded within the cultural or probably racial context while the latter is entrenched in the economic setting. Nevertheless, both are interconnected and intertwined, at certain level, in the modern world.

Due to the globalizing trend of economy in particular and of the world in general, people of different races and cultures move dramatically from one place to another in the global scale. As a consequence, a nation-state -- especially the advanced or developed countries such the North America and the Great Britain -- in the present time-period is inhabited or populated by many and various races and cultures. Perhaps this diaspora of people from different land and time, at certain rate, is a welcome to particular nation-states.

It is arguable that industrialized nations widely receive the migration of people of different colors mainly because of the latter’s worth or value in the economic sense. For one, colored people are beneficial and helpful to the country’s progress and development. That is, they become part and parcel of the labor force from their host country. For a particular nation-state, people from multicultural backgrounds are greatly advantageous or “helpful” for the reason that they are industrious and submissive.

Du Bois, Yavno, and Stanford (2001) note that multicultural groups such as Mexican Americans have “histories of low-paying manual labor” (p. 78). People from different colors and cultures are more submissive to their host country to the extent that they allow themselves to be exploited. Of course, the multicultural people also benefit from such social or economic arrangement. For one thing, these people from various cultures or nations are able to have a kind of “good” job in a foreign land in contrast to the sort of “poor” job that they have had in their mother country.

Another essential contribution of multiculturalism and/or multiracial people especially within the work force is the advancement of “genuine multiracial unity” (Nakanishi & Lai, 2003, p. 424). Nakanishi and Lai (2003) admit that racism is prevalent even within the labor movement. This only shows, among other implications, that racial and labor theories and praxis are widely different and distinct. Since racism is far from economic in nature, Nakanishi and Lai encourage the labor movement as a whole to change certain course of its programs and platforms in order for multiracial and multicultural unity to really exist.

In embracing the issue of racism within the paradigm of the labor movement, perhaps the workers can gain specific and presumably several successes in their aims and objectives of economic equality. Evidently, workers of whatever color, race, or culture are equally exploited and oppressed by particular forces characterized in the global world or globalization. Perhaps the ideas and ideals of the working class may possibly attain its dream if it considers the importance of multiculturalism in changing the face of the earth.

References Du Bois, B. C., Yavno, C. H., & Stanford, E. P. (2001). Care options for older Mexican Americans: Issues affecting health and long-term care service needs. In L. K. Olson (Ed.), Age through ethnic lenses: Caring for the elderly in a multicultural society (pp. 71-85). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Nakanishi, D. T., & Lai, J. S. (Eds.). (2003). Asian American politics: Law, participation, and policy. Oxford, UK: Rowman & Littlefield.