Jain Spirit 2000 03 No 03

SR No.: 528983
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jain Spirit UK
Publisher: UK Young Jains
Publication Year: 2000
Total Pages: 66
Language: English
Classification: Magazine, UK_Jain Spirit, & UK
File Size: 14 MB

Page 19

FEATURES
Jains are keeping their identity in the melting pot. Young Jains from Philadelphia who participated in the cultural programme at the JAINA Convention in July 1999
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JAINS HAVE A LOT TO OFFER
Jain culture and values can truly enrich American society writes Cromwell Crawford.
n order to view the American melting pot, we must first | background, this was the image in which you were made, and ask: "What is America?" By one definition: "America is a the justification was a pragmatic one: success. Nothing country that doesn't know where it is going, but is succeeds like success, especially in America. determined to set a speed record getting there". More seriously, America is more than a country, more than a geographical reality. It is also a political reality, a moral reality, and a cultural reality. It is the first country in which people deliberately planned in principle to institutionalise the values of freedom, responsible government, and human equality.
The earliest metaphor to capture America's cultural diversity was the creation of Israel Zangwill, who called America "God's crucible, the great melting pot". A crucible is a vessel in which hard metals are fused. The vision is that of different people, pouring their differences into a pot that melts them down, and what comes out is some solid form, made in America. The motto was: ex pluribus unum, "one out of many". Historically, the 'one' took on the form of the White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant, WASP in short. No matter what your
Jain Spirit March May 2000
It would be unpatriotic to hold on to the vestiges of the old world, especially if they appeared strange and funny, including your own name. So my Telugu-speaking friend, Devadutt, became David. Quite a fall for a god (deva)! After the Second World War, the WASP identity of America began to erode, as America encountered people from Asia and was forced to alter her Immigration laws, which previously had forbidden them citizenship. The new immigrants were much more educated and more wealthy than their predecessors, and were not so willing to renounce their cultural lineage. Whereas the Caucasian mind thinks in terms of "either/or", the Asian mind thinks in terms of "both/and". Asians felt there was no logic to your having to sacrifice the old for the new when you could have the best of both worlds.
Personally, I am of the view that while there is strength in