Multiculturalism. Just one word alone is enough to make many teenagers shudder, and it is a word very much overused in our society today, often for the wrong reasons. Despite this, many people do not understand multiculturalism, so it is forced to the back of our minds as something that the ‘Government can deal with’. So how did such an important issue end up being so overlooked? Is it that nobody knows how to make multiculturalism really work, or is it that not enough people care? I believe the core of multiculturalism is racial tolerance; respecting people for who they are and not for their race. So therefore, I think the main hindrance to multiculturalism today is the adults of our society, and their inability to let go of the past and respect every human being as equal. Firstly, I should probably tell you why multiculturalism is so important to me. I am proud to say that my whole family and I are very racially tolerant, and we respect and judge people by their personality, not by their culture. I went to two primary school, which, in terms of multiculturalism, were worlds apart. Of the first school I went to, I would say that about 90% of the students there were from English-speaking backgrounds. Because of the lack of multiculturalism there, many students were racially intolerant as they were unused to other cultures and races. An example of the intolerance in this school was the Aboriginal garden. In this school there is a small garden filled with native Australian plants and shrubs called the Aboriginal garden. Once when I was at the school, some students thought it was hilarious to dance around the garden, making funny noises and pretending to be Indigenous Australians. Now, if any teachers had caught them doing this they would have gotten into a lot of trouble and had a severe talking-to. However they did it when no teachers were around, so they got away with it. Another example of the intolerance was against a visitor to the school. A travelling Students Band went to play at this school, and an Asian member of the band was approached by a group of boys who swore at her, telling her to get out of their school and out of their country. So as you can see, racism was an issue at this school, especially with one certain group of students. But it was not the children who were at fault. They had little experience with other cultures or with the concept of multiculturalism, and so they learnt to see non-English students as a nationality, instead of as a person. The school is working very hard to reverse this by increasing student awareness of multiculturalism and of other cultures, especially of Indigenous Australians. Unfortunately, they are constantly battling against a few prejudiced parents of students at the school, who are refusing to let go of the past and move on. And if the parents will not move on, how can their kids? The second school I went to was Wollongong Public School. When I was there, of the 300 or so students, at least 190 where from non-English speaking backgrounds. Now there are students from 33 different nationalities there, some of which I've never even heard of! And the best thing about it is that there is very little racism at all. But of the racism that does occur the first is actually prejudice from foreign students points of view. Students come to Wollongong after having suffered from racism in the past, and expect students at Wollongong to be racist as well. So they tend to view normal arguments that have broken out to be racially caused or provoked, when in
