Anthropology is quintessentially multicultural. It has always been a discipline dedicated to the cross-cultural comprehension of human diversity. However, my own classroom experience has taught me that my ability to communicate cultural differences between peoples living in "exotic" places does not easily translate into the successful communication of ethnic and racial subcultural differences within the United States. Rather, in the highly politically charged debates on multiculturalism versus E pluribus unum, anthropologists have often been excluded and have had to prove that their voices are legitimate. As a white middle-class woman who was hired by the University of Vermont to teach courses on racial and ethnic diversity in the United States, I am often haunted by identity politics. Students and colleagues have raised this red flag repeatedly, despite my scholarly expertise in the area. Consequently, I have developed numerous approaches to teaching that draw on anthropological insights and methods. I discuss a few of them here.
