미국의 다문화주의 ― 민권운동과 1965년 이민개혁법의 조우, 그리고 예견치 못했던 결과 ―

Abstract

Multiculturalism, the seeking of equal rights and recognition for ethnic, racial identities, is one of the most controversial intellectual and political movements in contemporary U. S. history. In the early 1990s, against a backdrop of economic recession and rising job insecurity, controversy over multiculturalism and immigration policy intensified. Then, for the first time, the two issues were connected in the public eye. This study deals with the origin of multuculturalsim, analyzing its linkage to immigration. The direct origin of multiculturalism is America's unsolved race problem. Emerging in the historical context of America's civil right movement, multuculturlaism appears as the quest for group rights, that is, as the quest for public status by “minority” groups that claims special compensation and privileges. The passage of the civil right acts and the immigration reform law in 1960s was from a common grounding in liberal nondiscrimination doctrine. But, the Implementation in the 1970s of the nondiscrimination laws of the 1960s led to compensatory preferences for minorities(or ‘reverse discrimination’). Beginning in 1969 with Nixon administration, the nondiscrimination provisions were transformed into affirmative action programs benefiting an expanding array of protected groups. Then, African Americans, the chief beneficiaries of civil right acts were joined with other minorities, that is women, Asian Americans, Hispanics, and the disabled. Such a convergence of affirmative action and immigration policy was unlikely and unanticipated. But from this convergence emerged ‘a race conscious’ group right movement, which accelerated the multicultural movement.