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Last summer two events occurred that focused my thinking about multiculturalism within an international framework: the Olympic Games in Atlanta and the crash of TWA Flight 800. Though impressed that Atlanta officials had marked the multinational character of the games by posting Olympic Village signs and making announcements of event results in English and in French, like many I was disappointed that television coverage was limited almost exclusively to the display of American athletic prowess. Among the many casualties of the TWA disaster was a group of high school French majors on their way to Paris as a reward for linguistic achievement, and François Manchuelle, a former TA in the French Department and recipient of a UCSB doctorate in history. François, who specialized in African history under the direction of Bob Collins, was on his way home for the summer before returning to his post at New York University for the fall semester. As a nation we have been enriched by the contributions of succeeding generations of immigrants. Yet, perhaps because we think of ourselves as inhabiting a continent more than a country, we have never been able to divest ourselves of a tenacious strain of isolationism that manifests itself prominently in newspaper and television reporting. We are many, we are multicultural, but we often act as if we were one and ethnocentric. In fact, our very multiculturalism invites us to look at our national composition and its various origins, that is, we tend to look inward. To counterbalance the narrowness of this view, we should complement multiculturalism with internationalism, which is multiculturalism writ large. This perspective forces us to look beyond ourselves. It is possible as well as desirable to marry the multicultural with the international. Anyone who has taken a language course at UCSB has probably come into contact with SCOLA (Satellite Communications for Learning), the television network that broadcasts international news 24 hours a day. I was able to have it installed several years back not only in the Kerr Hall Language Lab but also in the lounges of the language departments in Phelps Hall. It was watched intensely during the Gulf War by international students seeking a non-American perspective on the conflict. Just a few months ago, on the request of advisory board member Roman Baratiak, SCOLA was extended to the MultiCultural Center. SCOLA may become a feature of the residence halls and of the new student residential complex planned for the West Campus. There is no better cure for myopic multiculturalism than a stay abroad. Lacking that opportunity, one can substitute a knowledge of current events as interpreted by newscasters from all over the globe. Conversely, there is no sounder treatment for unreflective internationalism ("You can't do it better than the Japanese . . . the Germans . . . the Swiss.") than the study of cultural innovations wrought by the many who came here from elsewhere. A symbol of the convergence of these tendencies may be seen in a new bilingual journal titled "Black Renaissance/Renaissance noire" (1-800-842-6796). The first issue includes articles by Houston A. Baker Jr., a leading Afro-American intellectual, and Maryse Condé, an outstanding francophone writer. The winter 1997 issue will be dedicated, appropriately, to the memory of François Manchuelle. ~ Ronald W. Tobin is associate Originally published as a Letter to the Editor in 93106,vol. 7, no. 7 (January 6, 1997), p. 2. |