No other country can come close to claiming the diversity with which the United States interacts with the world. In a sense, Americans are so diverse that we look like the world, or to put it another way, the world is coming to look like us. Americans are not perfect. We're not even as good as we can get-yet. At the start of the twenty-first century, we had some racial and ethnic problems we still had to solve. We won't learn to solve these issues unless-as we have before-we take the time to learn about each other. But we have come a long way in the more than 230 years since Thomas Jefferson penned the immortal words of this nation's most precious document. "The Ethnic Cultures of America" will help us do this. Remember, besides sharing in this nation's triumphs, Americans have endured many difficulties, wars, depressions, recessions, and tragedies. Yet, enduring doesn't mean agreeing all the time; we have certainly had our share of disagreements. But isn't that part of what the United States is all about? The right to disagree? And more importantly, to be ourselves.