ABSTRACT
The final chapter, “The Diversity Machine,” brings the story of diversity in America through the last two decades and right up to today. The idea of diversity took another curve on and following 9/11; the attacks in 2001 proved to significantly deescalate the culture wars, bringing a greater sense of unity into the equation. Citizens of different backgrounds and political orientations may have alternative perspectives on many issues but, as a television commercial following the attacks stated, “We are all Americans.”
The reminder that diversity was a cornerstone of our national identity hardly implied that Americans were ready to jump back into the melting pot, however. In recent years, the metaphor of the nation being a mosaic has emerged, instilling the image of the United States as consisting of many individual pieces that form a pattern. While pluralistic thinking and action have heavily defined everyday life in the country, however, echoes of the culture wars continue to reverberate. The struggle over American diversity remains a passionate one, and there is little reason to think that it will ever recede from our public dialog.
