Native American Cultural Pluralism

Cultural pluralism is the “means valuing and maintaining cultural and linguistic differences within a society” (Tozer, 2013, p. 196). While assimilation is the “process by which diverse cultures—immigrants, racial, ethnic, and linguistic minorities—alter their customs, habits, and languages to allow absorption into a dominant culture, both positive and negative” (Tozer, 2013, p. 196). As the European American expansion to the West began to take root, it was in the best interest of the American Indian to be educated and civilized. As Tozer states “if the Indian couldn’t be eliminated, their Indianess could” (Tozer, 2013, p. 201). It was the American federal government's main focus to wipe out Native American culture and replace it with what