The term “melting pot” – and with it the concept it projects of American society – has, over the years, been replaced by any number of new coinages and colourful metaphors. America has been likened to a mosaic or a rainbow and the once proverbial melting pot, which implied that immigrants were stripped of their old identity and re-formed as true Americans, has been superseded by the more individualistic concept of the “salad bowl”, which contains a “tossed salad”, the American society of today. Ingredients of this salad are the so-called “hyphenated” Americans: the Irish-Americans, the Russian-Americans, the German-Americans and so on and, of course, the Afro-Americans.
There is no doubt, however, that most ethnic groups, however diverse they may have originally been, share much the same national values and ideas. And yet, what is characteristic of American society today is the fact that it recognizes and even encourages ethnic diversity and, at the same time, tries to contain it. By the middle of the 21st century, immigration and birth rates will have changed irreversibly the ethnic and cultural make-up of American society. The number of Hispanics and Non-whites will have more than doubled, the Asians’ presence will have risen considerably, and the white population will not have increased at all but will remain stable. Thus the potential for racial tension and ethnic friction will, in all probability, remain an integral part of American life, if not become even more pronounced.
Taken from “The Melting Pot Myth” published in the collection “Summit” (Schöningh Verlag, 1997), adapted – not to say “improved on” by you know who.
melting pot: The concept of America as a melting pot dates back to the 1780s when Michel-Guillaume Jean de Crèvecœur informed his English readers on his impressions of America and the Americans. For him an immigrant to America became a “new man” who had left everything behind, even his prejudices, habits and manners; America was the place where individuals of all nations were “melted” into a new race of men. In 1908 the English Zionist, Israel Zangwill published a single-minded melodrama, “The Melting Pot”, in which two Russian immigrants found love and happiness in America. God’s crucible, “the great melting pot where all the races of Europe are melted and re-forming”. Zangwill’s play was crowned with success in Washington and New York and stamped the enduring image of America as a melting pot on the national consciousness.
salad bowl: a large bowl in which salad, especially a tossed salad is served
tossed salad: a salad consisting of one or more greens,
tomatoes, etc. tossed with a dressing
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