The Ever Changing America

Pluralism in America makes for a very unique society to be a part of. Not only does it allow a number of cultures to coexist, but it allows people to practice both American traditions as well as traditions from other cultures they identify with. By having this unique mixture of traditions America has become a place with an ever changing identity.
“In the United States the climate of tolerance and engagement of pluralism emerge not from an authoritarian central regime, but from a democratic experiment as an immigrant nation, a nation in which, at our best, we our motivated by ideals and principles” (Eck, 335). Because America has a constant inflow of immigrants the culture of America is in constant transformation. By sheer virtue that America in known as an “immigrant nation” it has a level of pluralism unlike much of the world. With a nation built by immigrants the United States has come to be a nation of change. One cannot simply say being an American means that you eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch or on a higher note that to be American one has to be Christian. In fact, being American is now something in which people eat food from a variety of ethnic backgrounds and where two religions build their facilities next door to one another.
In the chapter “Bridge Building: A New Multireligious America, author Diane Eck, suggests that religious institutions are a place in which many immigrants gain insight into American culture. For example, Eck refers to Dr. Havanapola Ratanasara, a Sri Lankan Buddhist monk, who encouraged Buddhist immigrants to embrace the American culture by observing the popular holidays. “Americans as a people celebrate several major religious holidays regardless of their own personal beliefs” (340). By encouraging immigrants to take part in religious holidays other than their own, Dr. Havanapola Ratanasara models the level of tolerance Americans have or should have for one another.
As we can see, for many immigrants religious institutions become a place that not only allows them to preserve cultural traditions from their original culture, but also help them to assimilate into the American culture. This can also work the other way around; in many cases religions in America have to be willing to make accommodations or changes to attract immigrants. According to Cecilia Menjivar, “to reach out to new comers, churches also incorporate popular religious practices that are culturally essential for the immigrants” (25). This idea of incorporating different practices is a clear example of American pluralism. As suggested by Eck this willingness to bend from both the receiving society as well as the immigrants “means to be American is constantly being expressed in new ways as the fabric of America’s peoples change” (338).
Because of American pluralism the culture of America is always changing some way or another. It is one of the great qualities of American culture, in which we are not only able to interact with in such a diverse society, but also have the “freedom to grow” and become a model for the rest of the world.

Eck, Diane L. A New Religious America. San Francisco: Harper, 1997.

Menjivar, Cecilia. "Religion and Immigration in Comparative Perspective: Catholic and Evangelical Salvadorans in San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Phoenix." Sociology of Religion, 64.1 (2003): 21-45.