Mako Nakagawa, from "Cooperative Pluralism"

If we are to succeed as a nation both in international trade and in leadership for democracy, we need to use the diverse cultural laboratory of our own country as a training ground for producing citizens who value differences, respect the validity of our own perspectives, understand the independence of people, and who have the interpersonal skills to effectively communicate across all spectra of ethnicity, nationality, language, culture, gender, values, and even political ideology. It is less important for students to learn to appreciate ethnic foods than it is for students to understand equal rights. Yet, much of what we have taught under the rubric of multicultural education has fallen into the trap of "Tacos on Tuesdays." That is, the trap of teaching about cultures and about cultural differences without teaching an understanding of how cultural differences, or gender, class, and other differences, contribute to the unified whole of a democratic nation.

(as cited in Gibbs, 2001, pp. 34-35)