Clinton Sees Diversity as Nation's Crucial Challenge

 By LAWRENCE L. KNUTSON
 Associated Press Writer

 WASHINGTON -- (AP) -- Of all the challenges the United States will face in the
 next century, by far the most important is building ``one America out of this crazy
 quilt of all of us who live here,'' President Clinton told an Italian-American audience
 Saturday night.

 Too many people at home and abroad will enter the next millennium caught ``in a
 conflict between modern possibilities and primitive hatred,'' unable to grasp the
 fact they share ``a common humanity,'' Clinton said.

 Solve the problem of prejudice and group hatred, Clinton said, ``and we'll find a
 way to deal with all the rest of our problems.''

 Clinton addressed the 24th annual black-tie dinner of the National Italian
 American Foundation, offering praise and thanks for the organization's support of
 his administration's ``One America'' initiative, which seeks to build unity out of the
 nation's rapidly increasing ethnic diversity.

 The foundation is the major Washington advocate for nearly 15 million Italian
 Americans, the nation's fifth largest ethnic group.

 It is a group, Clinton said, that has suffered from prejudice and discrimination in
 the past and is still troubled by flawed and faulty ethnic stereotypes.

 ``What we have to do for the 21st century is to grow one country out of our
 diversity,'' the president said.

 And it is that very diversity, he added, ``which makes America a very interesting
 place to live in.''

 Clinton was joined on the dais by first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, who spoke of
 her interest in the issues of children. She did not mention her probable Senate
 race in New York state, where Italian-Americans are a politically potent ethnic
 group.

 Guests at the bipartisan dinner included Italian Foreign Minister Lamberto Dini;
 singer Vic Damone; Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia; White House chief of
 staff John Podesta; and the actor-model known as Fabio.

Return to the News and Announcements page.
Return to the Affirmative Action and Diversity Page

Carl Gutiérrez-Jones
Department of English
University of California, Santa Barbara
e-mail: carlgj@humanitas.ucsb.edu