When Did Multiculturalism Get So Complicated?

For the past few decades, the idea of multiculturalism in the U.S. seemed like something soft and mild. Schools and popular media reinforced the message that being American meant happily accommodating other cultures, offering abundant public services, prioritizing their holidays (even non-holidays like Cinco de Mayo and Kwanzaa), and striving to simply “live and let live.” Naturally, noticing certain patterns of behavior, good or bad, from an immigrant community was heavily discouraged while ongoing open dialogue and celebrating differences was aggressively pushed.