Minority groups in society should be embraced and not feared, the US ambassador to Ireland, Mrs Jean Kennedy Smith, told the colloquium on "Multiculturalism and Racism".
Opening the event, she said the US has discovered that "minority groups from Asia, from the Caribbean and Latin America have broadened our culture, expanded our economy and, just as the minority groups before them, have worked hard to make a better life for themselves and their children".
She admitted that equal rights for minorities are never easily won and that the response to those who lead the fight is often hostile. "In the United States, in the Middle East, in the Far East, and here too in Ireland, it has always been a difficult fight."
However, she asked why that should be so. "We are all immigrants or descendants of immigrants. We all have been, are, or will be minorities. It is only fear that separates us, fear that the minorities will take over our governments, fear that minorities will take our jobs and fear that minorities will move into our neighbourhoods."
Ms Kennedy Smith paid tribute to the legendary US civil rights activist, Dr Martin Luther King, who was murdered 30 years ago this month. "His words have echoed down the past three decades. They echo in the hopes and the longings of all oppressed people, wherever they may be."