Ethnic Attire Quotes

For a person accustomed to the multi ethnic commotion of Los Angeles, Vancouver, New York, or even Denver, walking across the BYU campus can be a jarring experience. One sees no graffiti, not a speck of litter. More than 99 percent of the thirty thousand students are white. Each of the young Mormons one encounters is astonishingly well groomed and neatly dressed. Beards, tattoos, and pierced ears (or other body parts) are strictly forbidden for men. Immodest attire and more than a single piercing per ear are forbidden among women. Smoking, using profane language, and drinking alcohol or even coffee are likewise banned. Heeding the dictum "Cougars don't cut corners," students keep to the sidewalks as they hurry to make it to class on time; nobody would think of attempting to shave a few precious seconds by treading on the manicured grass. Everyone is cheerful, friendly, and unfailingly polite. Most non-Mormons think of Salt Lake City as the geographic heart of Mormonism, but in fact half the population of Salt Lake is Gentile, and many Mormons regard the city as a sinful, iniquitous place that's been corrupted by outsiders. To the Saints themselves, the true Mormon heartland is here in Provo and surrounding Utah County--the site of chaste little towns like Highland, American Fork, Orem, Payson and Salem--where the population is nearly 90 percent LDS. The Sabbath is taken seriously in these parts. Almost all businesses close on Sundays, as do public swimming pools, even on the hottest days of the summer months. This part of the state is demographically notable in other aspects, as well. The LDS Church forbids abortions, frowns on contraception, and teaches that Mormon couples have a sacred duty to give birth to as many children as they can support--which goes a long way toward explaining why Utah County has the highest birth rate in the United States; it is higher, in fact, than the birth rate in Bangladesh. This also happens to be the most Republican county in the most Republican state in the nation. Not coincidentally, Utah County is a stronghold not only of Mormonism but also Mormon Fundamentalism.

A truly multicultural nation ruled by multiculturalists would not have Christianity as its unofficial standard religion. It would not have suits as its standard professional attire. English would not be its standard language or be assessed by standardized tests. Ethnic Studies would not be looked upon as superfluous to educational curricula. Afrocentric scholars and other multicultural theorists, lecturing on multiple cultural perspectives, would not be looked upon as controversial. No cultural group would be directly and indirectly asked to learn and conform to any other group’s cultural norms in public in order to get ahead. A nation of different-looking people is not automatically multicultural or diverse if most of them practice or are learning to practice the same culture.

we can identify four concerns underlying the major developments in fashion: status, sex, power, and personality. Clothing is a status symbol, and history is replete with rules and laws designed to ensure that the social status of individuals is reflected in what they wear. Dress is also a sex symbol—social conventions and laws have ensured that clothing establishes whether one is male or female, sexually innocent or experienced, married or single, chaste or promiscuous. Attire is a uniform of power: it has helped define national belonging as much as any territorial border; it has differentiated ethnic groups and tribes as much as any language or cultural ritual; it has shaped religious sects as much as any scripture; and it has both established and challenged racial hierarchies. Finally, fashion is a medium for the expression of individual personality. We assemble our wardrobes and daily ensembles to reflect a distinctive point of view and confirm a distinctive sense of self.

the AYP was starkly different in that there was an undeniable aspect of exploitation that boggles the mind by today’s standards. The AYP sensationalized humans—Igorrote villagers—whose attire drew the ire of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. The WCTU asked Reverend Mark Matthews, a Presbyterian minister known for his moral crusades, to look into the matter. The concern was not that there were fifty villagers being exploited for their strange ethnicity, but that their loincloths might be inauthentic, designed for titillation.