Multiculturalism

MULTI﻿CU﻿LTURALISM
===The United States is a nation that is now home to many different nationalities and many different cultures. America is different than a hundred years ago because the peoples of these different cultures have brought their cultures here and started something new. Everyone has pride in their roots and one aspect that is important in culture today is food and that food is accessed from different places, whether it is home grown or store bought. Everyone has a different demand for something different and those things are what define their cultures and their ecological footprints all together. We will be looking at the some of the cultures that are prevalent in the U.S. today and how they are impacting the environment as a people. ===

Asian Americans

 * Asian Americans are among one of the growing populations here in America .
 * According to the U.S Census Bureau in the year 2000 there were 11.9 million Asian Americans living in the U.S.
 * They are found in bigger cities such as Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and Chicago.
 * This population is said to be tripled by 2050.

The Asian culture, itself, is very diverse in languages and also in food, but despite the fact that they have mnay subcultures, one thing that the Asian cultures share in common is rice. Rice is the main portion of their meals. As stated above you can see how this specific group is a rising population in America, which then increases demands for more rice and it is not only the Asian American population that is consuming it. The U.S only consumes about 3.9 thousand metric tons in about a year compared to China who takes in 135 thousand metric tons. Though the demand is going up the production is decreasing and has decreased worldwide about 10-15% because of the warmer weather and rising sea waters.

Rice is something that is hard to grow and hard to maintain. It needs more water than most grains to grow and is responsible for some of the methane emissions. If the soil stays under the water due to excess water from rain that causes the soil to ferment because of the lack of atmospheric oxygen that it is taking in. Then the microbes in the soil convert the carbon that is in the soil into methane and that methane is then released by the plants through respiration.

The majority of the methane that is released comes from Asian countries because they were leading producers in rice. China alone made up 26% of what the world has produced. In America rice is grown in seven different states, but we barely make up one percent of the production of rice reducing the methane that the U.S. as a whole contributes to our ecological footprint.

African-Americans

 * ﻿ The 2000 U.S. Census Bureau showed that there are about 35 million African Americans, which is about 13% of America’s population .
 * African-American foo﻿d dates back to the civil war when plantations were still around.
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Orgins of their food culture started in the South when slavery was still around.

<span style="color: #f06214; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Hispanic Americans

 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,serif;">According to the 2002 U.S.Cencus Bureau the hispanic population here in America is larger than the African-American and non-hispanic population.
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,serif;">This is the fastest growing group that is here in the U.S.
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,serif;">There are three major subgroups, Mexican, Perto Rican, and Cubans, but the largest gorup is Mexicans that make up about half of the poplation of Hispanic Americans.

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Like Asian Americans, Hispanics have a reliance on grains and beans and also fresh fruits and vegetables, but they do not necessarily share the same kinds of meals. Mexicans like to eat corn and amaranth, South Americans like wheat, quinoa, and potatoes, and last Hispanics from the Carribean and coastal areas of Latin America like rice. As you can see all Hispanics have their preferences and the list goes on of all the different things even in the different regions of the U.S that Hispanic Americans live. In general beans are a food that is common amongst all Hispanics and hispanics alone consume 34 pounds per capita and non-hispanic whites only consume about 6 pound per capita. Corn is another food that is a common ingredient whether it be in tortillas or cooked with their meals, the intake is large.

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Corn in America is being produced over about 93 million acres in the U.S. There has been about a 20% increase of corn production, but because of this massive amount of corn it is causing waterways to be polluted with nutrients and fertalizers that are being used for growing corn.

<span style="color: #f06214; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Conclusion
<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Overall there are many different foods that are consumed by some of these major culture groups and their food culture affects our environment. All this food comes from farming of some sort. As the population in the United States continues to rise, the demand for some of these foods start to increase as well causing more agriculture areas to be created such as cattle production. In order for that to happen there might need to be another forest taken down. Food and cultres is a domino effect because the population is growing fast then we are producing produce and if we can not speed up that process then people do not have food, so then there needs to be something done, so more land is taken to grow more food in less time and more chemicals added to that process.


 * <span style="color: #f06214; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Glossary **

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,serif;">**Methane** - A colorless, odorless, flammable gas that is the simplest hydrocarbon. It is the major constituent of [|natural gas] and is released during the decomposition of plant or other organic compounds, as in marshes and coal mines. It is also a harmful greenhouse gas that is worse then carbon dioxide.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; cursor: default; font-family: Georgia,serif;">**Subculture -** a group having social, economic, ethnic, or other traits distinctive enough to distinguish it from others within the same culture or society.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; cursor: default; font-family: Georgia,serif;">**Ecoligocal footprint** - the amount of productive land appropriated on average by each person (in the world, a country...) for food, water, transport, housing, waste management, and other purposes.