An opinion survey from a national pro-English organization asks Americans whether they support providing election materials in "foreign" languages. But which languages are foreign in multiethnic America?

Examples like this one, Eugene Eoyang argues, betray a blind spot in our thinking about America's cultural makeup. In a trend based on historical ignorance, too many Americans treat cultural diversity as a dubious fad, instead of a description of what has always been the nature of America - and its real strength.

Here, finally, is a cogent response to the many voices decrying multiculturalism in America.

Eugene Eoyang argues for cultural diversity, not just in education but also more widely, in our very conception of what is "American." In doing so he visits a broad range of topics, from the meaning of racial categories in the United States and the role of immigrants in perpetuating the myth of white America to the benefits and pitfalls of Western analytic thinking and the economic and practical rewards of literacy in more than one language.

Demonstrating that Western culture itself is founded on principles that favor a multicultural vision, Eoyang urges us to reclaim our country's multiethnic, multilingual heritage. Coat of Many Colors is a broad-ranging, independent-minded analysis of the state of American education and culture.