Edgewalkers

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Until relatively recently, many immigrants, not only to America but also to other countries around the world, embraced the melting pot idea and worked diligently to lose accents and Old World ways, wherever Old World happened to be. People persecuted for their religious or ethnic ties clutched the anonymity of blending as a protective shield; some avoided sharing family history with younger generations and refused to teach them Old World languages or traditions.

At the opposite extreme, other newcomers surrounded themselves with like souls. They settled near their cultural neighbors, learned little of their adopted country's spoken language, and reconstructed a microcosm of their Old World, transplanted.

Neither approach is quite right for the cultural complexity that's brewing in the world. By next year, people of color will compose more than half the population of California. In America, as well as in other countries, collections of Asian, Latin American, Eastern European, and African progeny make it clear that previous assumptions about the identity of inhabitants of a particular nation can't be taken for granted.

People of mixed race are growing more vocal. Hapa Issues Forum, a five-year-old mixed-race organization with 500 members nationwide--along with other such groups--is determined to promote a new, race-free consciousness. "People here don't have hang-ups about race," co-founder Greg Mayeda told the Sacramento Bee. "Connecting all these diverse people builds a chain with links in each community and tears down the walls that divide people."

This idea of linking is more powerful than legislation because it is personal. In recreating our country's center, it is essential to "crisscross commonalities," as Martha Minow suggested in her book Not Just for Myself: Identity, Politics & the Law. Cultural change becomes real through overlapping communities, families that extend over marriages and divorces, and groups that make music, play sports, or stage benefits together.

Edgewalking isn't just about minority people moving into mainstream culture or back and forth between different groups. It's also about mainstream people getting comfortable with people outside that mythical center. If the melting pot ideal is not the model for dealing effectively with diversity, experimenting with edges and finding new models is the challenge.

Adapted with permission from Edgewalkers: Defusing Cultural Boundaries on the New Global Frontier (New Horizon Press).

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