The Importance of Globalization

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In recent years, terms such as “Global community,” “globalization,” and “global awareness” have seemed to roll off the tongues of every newscaster, advertiser, and politician with such ease that the popular phrases have nearly become cliché. With the Internet now possessing a rather prominent role in life and with communications faster than ever, it would seem the world’s rapid progress toward international relations necessitates such terminology. However, in America, these optimistic clichés possess a seed of hypocrisy, a false note that clangs discordantly to disturb the practiced cadence of the telecaster’s report. It is not that America does not “Think globally,” but rather that, to many Americans, America is the extent of their terrestrial sphere.

Yet even within the confines of our own country-world, we don’t shed our comfortable, self-imposed boundaries. We don’t see the growing Hispanic and Asian populations in our midst, viewing them—if we acknowledge them at all—as invaders in our world. According to Census 2000, 35,305,818 people of Hispanic or Latino origin inhabited the United States in the year 2000, nearly 13 million more than in 1990. The census revealed the growth rate among the Hispanic population of the U.S. to be the greatest out of any of the minorities at a surprising 57.9%, and the growth of America’s Asian population to be the second fastest, growing at 48.3% in that single 10- year period (U.S. Census Bureau, Table 4). If the trend of the past decade continues, in two years, the Hispanic population will be the largest minority in the U.S, with Asians making up a larger portion of our population as well. Will we then take notice? Or will we still not offer Asian languages in our high schools, and insi...

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...e outside world, we will never be able to expand our horizons. Until we expand our horizons, we shan’t realize the promise of a true “global community.”

Works Cited

U.S. Census Bureau, Population Division. “Population by Race and Hispanic or Latino

Origin for the United States: 1990 and 2000 (PHC-T-1).” Available Online. Last updated:

April 03, 2001 at 02:19:24 PM. http://blue.census.gov/population/www/cen2000/

phc-t1.html. Table 4. [Accessed 6/3/2001].

Woyach, Robert B. “World History in the Secondary School Curriculum.” ERIC Clearinghouse for Social Studies/Social Science Education. Bloomington, Indiana. Available Online.

Last Updated 1989-09-00 (SIC) http://navigation.helper.realnames.com/framer/1/112/

default.asp?realname=Department+of+Education&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eed%2

Egov%2F&frameid=1&providerid=112&uid=30012423. [Accessed 6/3/2001].

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