ABSTRACT
To speak of the ‘boundaries of American culture’ within the context of academia and ethnic studies is to engage in discursive practices which themselves reflect the dominant ideological strategies in this country. These strategies call for a mystification of the relation between minority cultures and the dominant culture. But then, it is the very nature of ideology to provide an account of the world which will allow those of us who live in this society to continue to perform our roles and duties while ignoring the real conditions of our existence. These strategies are based on certain presuppositions: that there is a cultural mainstream whose shores or boundaries are ever expanding to receive the various tributaries that feed into it. Once properly channeled, one becomes part of the larger stream and achieves the rewards of such inclusion, newly found heirs of this legacy of culture, to use the words of William Bennett (Chronicle of Higher Education, 28 November 1984:16). The mainstream is thus formed of diversity wherein all share alike in a greater common culture and enjoy the same employment and educational opportunities. In this the best of all worlds, the factory worker is related to the banker and the gardener to the MIT professor, to paraphrase Richard Rodriguez (1985). Herein lies the mystification. Let us proceed by looking a bit more at the underlying assumptions behind the discourse of demarcation.
