2. Looking Back

One of the most noticeable changes over the past two generations is just how international the world has become. As a result of media and transportation advances, you now have access to a wide variety of products and services from abroad. Depending on your location, U.S. cable TV companies now offer channels in Chinese, Japanese, Tagalog, Hindi, Punjabi, Spanish, Russian, and many other languages. For example, DISH TV has available more than 170 international channels in 28 different languages (“International,” 2010). A visit to your local supermarket will reveal a variety of ethnic foods, many imported from other parts of the world. In urban areas, small ethnic food stores have become the norm. For instance, in La Jolla, California, a small Iranian market sells a selection of fresh feta cheeses imported from France, Bulgaria, Denmark, and Greece, as well as delicious pistachios from Iran.

A heightened awareness of culture in the U.S. armed forces is another significant change from the past. During the Vietnam conflict (1961–73) and the first Gulf War (1990–91), culture was an afterthought at best. However, fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan has brought the importance of cultural understanding into the spotlight and several programs designed to instill cultural awareness have been developed. The U.S. Army has instituted the Human Terrain System, which co-locates civilian socio-cultural experts with commanders and staff to provide a source of knowledge on local peoples and their culture (“Human,” 2010). In order to acquire and effectively employ cultural knowledge, the U.S. Marine Corps established the Center for Advanced Operational Cultural Learning, which has the mission of training personnel in the application of language and culture to operations (“Center,” 2010).

Globalization has brought profound changes to the commercial sector, including the creation of numerous transnational corporations whose reach influences markets around the world. For example, Yum! Brands, the parent company of KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Long John Silver, and others, employs over one million workers in more than 110 countries (“Taking”, 2009). In earlier years, international corporate managers came to the United States to launch their careers, but now it is common to see U.S. managers heading to foreign locations.

In 2009, for instance, 24 percent of the graduates from MIT’s prestigious Sloan School of Management took positions abroad (“Job,” 2009). Among U.S. employers, workplace diversity is a continuing source of concern, and training courses designed to make employees aware of cultural differences and varied communication behaviors have become routine.

Residence abroad has also increased “because the globalization of industry and education tramples national borders,” and among the developed nations, the foreign-born population exceeds 8 percent on average (“Others,” 2009). This international movement also includes students in higher education. Current estimates are that over three million students are studying in a country other than their own, and some 672,000 foreign students were attending U.S. universities in 2008 (“Leagues,” 2010; “And,” 2009).

Contemporary U.S. demographics probably represent the most easily noticeable change relating to crosscultural issues. Quite simply, the United States has become much more multicultural over the past fifty years. A glance around your classroom will probably reveal a mix of people from different ethnicities, nationalities, age groups, and, less obvious, sexual preferences.

Most of these classmates will be U.S. born, but some may be from other countries. This is because people born outside the United States constitute 13 percent of the total population, the largest percentage among the developed nations (“Ponzi,” 2009). And lest you think all immigrants work in low-wage, dirty jobs, the 2000 census indicated that “47 percent of scientists and engineers in America with PhDs” were foreign born (“Economics,” 2009, p. 84). Immigrants in the United States often group themselves together in urban areas, where they retain their language and culture, unlike their predecessors in the early twentieth century who were expected, and indeed often forced, to assimilate to the dominant U.S. culture. A particularly vivid example of contemporary U.S. cultural diversity was the 2010 census website, which could be accessed in over fifty languages (“United States,” 2010).

Changing demographics in the United States also present fertile ground for future clashes between people of varied cultures. According to multiple reports, minorities will represent the collective majority by 2050, and 19 percent of the total population will be foreign born (Passel & Cohen, 2008; “U.S. Census,” 2008). This demographic shift is expected to produce considerable social change as members of minority ethnicities continue to replace the white majority in political, commercial, and educational positions of power.

In the commercial sector, changes are already occurring. In states such as New Mexico and California, where Hispanics constitute over 30 percent of the population, Spanish-language media programs are common, and several large U.S. retailers, including Walmart, have opened stores in Texas and Arizona specifically catering to the Hispanic market. According to a Walmart press release, the new stores “feature a layout and product assortment designed to make it more relevant to local Hispanic customers” (Moreno, 2009; “New Supermercado,” 2009). This is an excellent example of how culture influences our lives. We are comfortable with the things we know and are drawn to them, but we are often uncomfortable with things we do not know and frequently avoid them.