Singapore – A city of immigrants
Singapore is a country built by immigrants. Our forefathers came from various lands, drawn by the prospect of a better living and they brought with them their own cultures, beliefs and languages. Under British colonial rule, there were some initial challenges in how the different races interact and integrate with one another. The British dealt with this problem by simply separating the different races by locating them to the different part of town. For example, the majority Chinese were mainly housed in Kereta Ayer or more commonly known as Chinatown, the Malays in Kampong Glam Street, the Indians at Chulia Kampong also known as Church Street and later to Serangoon road. The idea of separation is to avoid disputes by keeping the different races apart. The legacy of the British continued up to the early 1960s where different races were concentrated in different part of Singapore. The separation caused mistrust and misunderstandings amongst the different races and the political rift between Singapore and Malaya in the years leading to independence escalated the racial issues. The racial tension cumulated into a few racial riots in Singapore during that period of time. Amongst the notable ones were the Maria Hertogh riots in 1950 and the racial riots in 1964 and 1969.
Realizing the importance of integration, the newly formed government after Singapore gained independence implemented a series of polices to promote racial harmony. For example, the introduction of the Ethic Integration Policy in 19891; a racial quota to limit the proportion of races residing in public housing to ensure no single estate is overly represented by any one race and the setting up of community centres within housing estates to encourage more interaction among the different races to build mutual understanding. Besides housing, education was also a major racial leveller in Singapore. The fundamental guiding principle behind education is meritocracy where access to education is universal and advancement is according to ability and not race. Students were also taught the importance of racial cohesion through the annual commendation of the racial harmony day.
Although these policies worked well and were deemed effective by the United Nations2, the memories of the racial violence in the not so distant past casted a long shadow over the government. The government needed to ensure that the racial harmony that Singapore has presently was not taken for granted.
Tension arising from changes in demographics
Against a backdrop of racial tension, integration of communities from different background remained a pertinent issue of the government.
If Tan were to examine Althusser’s argument, he would not agree that ‘ideology has a material existence’ (Ferretter, 2006). For Althusser, ideology is accompanied by actions and it is evident through rituals and practices. He claims that these practices of a person would give rise to his or her beliefs, and that ideology exists in apparatuses. Hence, ‘it is because of the Ideological State Apparatuses that we hold certain beliefs’ (Ferretter, 2006). As oppose to Althusser, Tan’s critic of Singapore’s culture industry highlights his point of view that ideology is materialized through ideas rather than actions. He argues that the ‘ideological division of Singaporeans into cosmopolitans and heartlanders’ (Tan, 2008) is a disguise by the PAP government to assert control. They do so by crafting new policies in the name of its citizens. For example, censorship is a hotly debated issue in Singapore and the government has restricted contents, which they deem unsuitable, from reaching the public’s eye. This is done in the name of the heartlanders, who are traditional and conservative. As such, this reiterates Tan’s argument that the ideology of the government is manifested within an idea of exercising their power in a subtle way, in contrast to Althusser’s thesis that ideology is followed by rituals and practices. Tan’s theory is more hopeful in comparison to Althusser, who focuses his arguments on the hypothesis that ‘ideas are not the property of individual subjects but the results of the situation of those subjects, in class society, within a set of ISAs (Ferretter,
One of the most significant issues which the United States has dealt with for decades is the issue of racial segregation. In a post-Civil Rights era, there is a common tendency to assume that racism is no longer a pressing social concern in America due to the gradual erosion of whiteness. During the late 1800s and much of the 1900s, segregation had been a controversial and divisive issue throughout the country. This issue stemmed from the separation of African Americans and whites during a period when slavery was recently abolished and Blacks were still looked down upon. This was the era of repressive Jim Crow laws, where strict segregation was mandated and racial segregation was regulated. After the Plessy v. Ferguson case of 1896, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of racial segregation as long as it was “separate but equal.” However, most facilities and services provided to African Americans were inferior and substandard compared to those offered to whites. This led to a massive uproar among the African American community, which paved the way for the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was created which fought for civil rights among African Americans. Although after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed any form of discrimination and segregation, the topic of segregation and integration still remains a contentious debate in America. Three writers who have opposing ideas on this topic are Daniel T. Lichter, Michael S. Murray, and Danielle Holley-Walker. Daniel Lichter opposes the idea of integration in his article “Integration or Fragmentation? Racial Diversity and the American Future.” He explains the Third Demographic T...
America is a country that has an unspoken immigration policy, and that is based entirely upon race. This policy has been in effect since we began racial classifications. In J.L. Hochschild’s paper titled “Racial Reorganization and the United States Census 1850-1930 Mulattoes, Half Breeds, Mixed Parentage, Hindoos, and the Mexican Race. Studies in American Political Development.” The reorganization of races was rooted in who is and who isn’t white. What we honestly know is that being white carries a cache and that has never changed. It’s like having a backstage pass to the greatest rock concert ever performed. Everybody you tell wishes they were there too. Within that frame work a determination of whom would be included and who would be excluded would have to be made. Did Native Americans have the ability to assimilate, would Mexicans be included in the Jim Crow laws, and whether all Asians should be excluded from entering the country were questions white people would determine. (J. L. Hochschild 1) And, these questions would form the basis of each groups place on America’s racial totem pole. The focus of Professor Hochschild’s paper is that the Census Bureau is deeply implicated in the social construct of race, and precious little has changed in all that time.
Historical Background: Colonial America and The United States that followed were created by repeated waves of immigration. Those immigrants came from every part of the globe, but particularly from England, France, Germany, and Western Europe. The descendants of this first wave of immigrants would view later immigrants from Italy, Poland, and Russia with a great deal of suspicion and uncertainty. This is not surprising as our country’s uncertainty about immigrants is reflected in our policies. For instance, there were no numerical restrictions or central regulation on immigration until one hundred years after our nation’s founding. When they were finally introduced they were created with bias against would be immigrants from certain countries. Among the first on that list were Chinese laborers followed by immigrants from the Asian Pacific (Ewing, 2012). These restrictions were first adopted in 1921, and were in favor of European immigrants. They would later be followed by national quotas that placed restrictions on immigrants based on existing proportions of the population. A shortage in laborers brought on by World War II would result in lifting those restrictions. This eventually led to a growth in immigration and a change in the origin of those arriving from Europe to Latin America and Asia. As the number immigrants from these countries began to grow, so did the concern about the number of them who were illegal (Ewing, 2012). Resulting policies issued to address those concerns would arguably lead to a resurgence of the problem that they were intended to correct.
Although the government, since the 1950’s, has strongly supported and encouraged racial integration within schools and communities, it seems that different races still tend to separate themselves somehow. A main source of school segregation is the continuance of racial separation in American communities, where most children must attend the public school that is zoned within a certain district, contingent upon their residency (“School Segregation in the United States”). Generally, lower-class neighborhoods are all zoned to attend school together with no integration of different races and cultures. However, advancements in legislation are now allowing parents to request school transfers in different districts that could possibly increase integration by attracting students from broader and more geographically diverse zones (“School Segregation in the United
Today in the United States, we have an integrated public school system and Americans that are in school right now, regardless of either education level, attend school and learn with individuals with different ethnic background. However, this hasn’t always been the case. Before 1954, schools were separated, many states, especially southern states, actually had laws that required schools to have separate facilities for students that were white and for students that were black. This was during a time in our country’s history that had a very different mind set than what we have today: a mindset that saw segregation and separation as an idea that was okay. Discrimination and racism was an everyday occurrence and was a very common attitude that blinded
She argues that segregation has larger implications than just material goods, so programs that merely redistribute these goods do not fully solve the problem. She discusses three additional effects that only integration can mitigate: “ social/cultural capital inequality, racial stigmatization, and anti-democratic effects” (Anderson 2). Anderson points out that members of isolated communities do not receive similar opportunities, “[undermining] disadvantaged groups’ accumulation of the cultural capital needed for advancement” (2). In addition, she argues that geographic isolation reinforces negative stereotypes, functioning to stigmatize minorities or members of out-groups in general. Racial stigmas do not just occur only with extremist thinking. Anderson points out that, “even people who consciously reject anti-black stereotypes have been found to discriminate against blacks” (17). She finally argues that segregation causes a lack of “both communication and accountability” between political elites and isolated minorities (17). Not only are these three effects byproducts of community separation, but they cannot be fixed simply by moving resources around. Anderson contends that integration is the only answer and is enacted through stages of formal desegregation, spatial integration, and formal social integration. These steps are the only way to ensure that isolated minorities will have equality under law, sharing of public institutions such as schools, and cooperation within those institutions leading to better
Segregation in the United States refers to the unequal treatment of people who come from different races. US is a country that has people of all races. However, the minority races have been ignored and segregated over time. This paper evaluates segregation in US and tells whether the situation has since changed. The paper also addresses the causes of the racial segregation and how it can be eliminated.
In the beginning integration of schools seemed like a “good idea” to district boards. If the district could show students of different backgrounds and races could come together then the idea could
Diversity, we define this term today as one of our nation’s most dynamic characteristics in American history. The United States thrives through the means of diversity. However, diversity has not always been a positive component in America; in fact, it took many years for our nation to become accustomed to this broad variety of mixed cultures and social groups. One of the leading groups that were most commonly affected by this, were African American citizens, who were victimized because of their color and race. It wasn’t easy being an African American, back then they had to fight in order to achieve where they are today, from slavery and discrimination, there was a very slim chance of hope for freedom or even citizenship. This longing for hope began to shift around the 1950’s during the Civil Rights Movement, where discrimination still took place yet, it is the time when African Americans started to defend their rights and honor to become freemen like every other citizen of the United States. African Americans were beginning to gain recognition after the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868, which declared all people born natural in the United States and included the slaves that were previously declared free. However, this didn’t prevent the people from disputing against the constitutional law, especially the people in the South who continued to retaliate against African Americans and the idea of integration in white schools. Integration in white schools played a major role in the battle for Civil Rights in the South, upon the coming of independence for all African American people in the United States after a series of tribulations and loss of hope.
Next, racial tension is also easily caused by prejudice and discrimination. According to Jon (1997), “prejudice is a general characteristic of human relationships” (p. 232). Jon (19970 found “prejudice is usually considered the cause of discrimination”. Prejudice is easily being found in someone to the others; especially they are from different races. They may treat the other races irrespectively and violently. First, people will not take it seriously. However, when the cases happen frequently and massively, people won’t take them as specials cases. The races that besieged will tend to feel anxious and strike back in order to protect themselves. Therefore, it tends to create racial tension. For examples, incidents of violence against Indians in Australia were happened frequently in last few months. Later on, an Indian student was killed. These have damaged the relationship between the Indians and Australians and created racial tension. Besides, African-Americans were still discriminated seriously by the Americans even after American Civil War. They had perspective that the African-Americans were slaves like they used to be. They received unequal treatment until the success of African-American Civil Rights Movement. The racial tension was existed during the period.
The arrival and integration of immigrants in the United States of America was a difficult and punctuated by obstacles. Not all immigrants were welcome; there was a rejection of certain immigrants’ institutes in law by the congress like the Chinese exclusion act of 1882. The integration of the immigrants in the American population was marked by xenophobia and violence such as the Zoot Suite Riots and discrimination and racist legal processes eventually struck down in the Hernandez vs. Texas trial.
Using Singapore to debate has an interesting point of view. After it separation from Malaysia at 9 of August 1965. The nation became an independent state. Singapore was on her own, a tiny island lack of natural resource such as oil and rubber plantation, and on the other hand Singapore own a strategic harbour location.
As a famous quote by Doug Floyd: You don’t get harmony when everybody sings the same note. This clearly shows that every individual has to play their own role in the society to unite the nation. Looking around the globe, we have numerous of countries of different ethnicity and tradition. Malaysia is the land of multilingual, multiracial, multicultural and multi-religious societies. However we still live in harmony without any conflicts and bloodshed. For example, Malaysia is a nation well-known for the diversity of its people. The people live together in peace under one nation despite the differences of religion, culture, language and more. In this case, it is proven that harmony in diversity is an essential ingredient to create a scrumptious
The concept of social harmony dates back to ancient China, to the time of Confucius. As a result, the philosophy has also been characterized as a form of New Confucianism. Society is the base for building our country to further our country construction and plans. But our country in the pass 47 years ago our country out of three big race Chinese and Malay fight in the case of 1969 May 13. Because we not be togetherness base on history of Malaysia , that time of Chinese is over show off causes an invisible resist after election（Pilihan Raya）. The time is passing , until now we are 1Malaysia can fight with any attacks from the outside because We are the 1 unique and our togetherness of spirit is never end whenever any problem come through us.I will never forget the idioms that totally express our country nowadays ‘Unity is