America: Melting Pot or tossed salad?

It should be left up to the individual. I know a man who is 100% Native American and has been ostracized by his family for marrying "outside the tribe". When I was younger I nearly married a woman who's parents were Chinese but her family hated me and mine hated her just because of our ethnic differences.

Exactly my point. That is tribalism, plain and simple. This is not how America was intended to be. I realize that American history is one of racism, but the fact that men failed to live up to certain ideals, does not discount the ideals. What you described goes on everyday in this country, but that doesn't make it right. Those are people who still hold onto their old culture and refuse to fully become Americans. I would like to share a quote from our 26th President Teddy Roosevelt:

"There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all. This is just as true of the man who puts "native" before the hyphen as of the man who puts German or Irish or English or French before the hyphen. Americanism is a matter of the spirit and of the soul. Our allegiance must be purely to the United States. We must unsparingly condemn any man who holds any other allegiance. But if he is heartily and singly loyal to this Republic, then no matter where he was born, he is just as good an American as any one else.

The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality, than with the other citizens of the American Republic. The men who do not become Americans and nothing else are hyphenated Americans; and there ought to be no room for them in this country. The man who calls himself an American citizen and who yet shows by his actions that he is primarily the citizen of a foreign land, plays a thoroughly mischievous part in the life of our body politic. He has no place here; and the sooner he returns to the land to which he feels his real heart-allegiance, the better it will be for every good American. There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American. The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else."

my second wifes parents hated me. I was a human being and they couldn't get over the fact that their daughter married out of her species....

The main problem I see with this (though not the only one) is that it assumes that there are not negative consequences to being a hyphenated American. (African-American, Chinese-American, etc.) There still are.

If there are negative consequences based on how someone looks, talks, dresses, whatever, I have a really hard time begrudging people the opportunity to inject some positive consequences -- to celebrate who they are, and bond with other members of that culture who understand their experiences.

And how was america intended to be? I'm reading a book on the history of education in america from colonial times to present. Only europeans were were really invited at any time to become assimilated. Or, do you consider seperate but equal (earliest court cases were in the 1830s, I think) to be a kind of assimilation? Come to think of it, Native Americans were invited (read forced) to become assimilated, they resisted.

"Melting pot" brings to my mind a big, tastless, featureless mass of homogenized blandness.

"Tossed Salad" seems to me like a mixture of divergent flavors and characteristics that combine with synergy.

I have to agree with you....it would be like bland non-nutritious white bread.

I want cornbread, tortillas, biscuts and rye.

One of the many difficulties preventing all of this from being more than just a thought experiment is that cultures aren't defined along racial lines alone, especially in America. Even if we got everyone to give up their hyphenated racial designations, we'd still have "tribes." There are people who identify themselves as simply American in New York, Arkansas, Ohio and Hawaii. There are worlds of difference between these communities (not to mention within them). As Littlek rightly asks, which of them, if any, gets to be the default model of what American culture looks like?

And, like Cahi said, who would want to give up burritos, quacamole, tapas, latkes, pad thai, sag paneer, salsa dancing.... or even bananas, potatoes, tomatoes, black pepper, silk, safron.....

Would we as the melted pot incorporate those wonders of american life and all share the same? I think that happens already, largely, especially in cities.

Why would anyone have to give up any of those items? Italian, French, Polish, German, etc... food and specialty resturants haven't gone away have they?

The concept of the melting pot died somewhere in the 1970s. Prior to that point immigrants came to this country and, while they stayed together in neighborhoods for many years, the 2nd and 3rd generations weren't readily distinguishable any more (other than perhaps through their family names). Those immigrants forced their children to learn English and adopt "American" culture. They assimiliated.

More recent groups don't seem interested in doing any of that. They seem to be more interested in maintaining their own distinct hertiage seperate from the larger body of society. In some cases going as far as wanting specific legal provisions for their groups.

There is a huge difference between bringing aspects of a culture in (i.e. food, holidays, etc..) when groups immigrate and creating seperate enclaves that don't interact with each other.

America was meant to be a melting pot, a new race of men that was meant to blend together to form a new nation. The importance of assimilating immigrants was acknowledged all the way back to Washington. Mere 'freedom' and 'democracy' are not enough to hold a nation together. We must share a common culture, history, memory language, etc.

What Theodore Roosevelt meant was that there must be some sort of cultural cohesion to hold a nation together. Especially in a democracy. If we turn into a bunch of squabbling tribes fighting each other for our own respective interests, we will no doubt go the way of the Balkans. The only thing that can hold together a tangle of seperate ethnicities and nationalities is an authoritarian government. Just look at the Balkans, the Ottoman empire, Iraq, Africa. The only thing keeping the peace between the various religions and ethnicities in these places were the autocratic governments. When those regimes collapse, these people cannot get along with each other. Look what has happened to Iraq. The Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds, do not know how to live together in peace. They have different worldviews, beliefs, goals, etc. They do not have cultural cohesion. If America continues to divide itself into tribes, we will not last. When it comes down to it, we will have loyalty only to our tribe and not our country. This is NOT what our founders wanted.

Fishin, in the beginning we were never intended to melt with anyone but anglo-saxons of protestant faith, slowly other europeans were deemed ok.
How many generations have there been since the 1970s? THe food hasn't gone away because we haven't melted! What separate enclaves are you refering to?

Atavistic - what our founders wanted was a new anglo society supported by cheap/free labor from other countries who would bliondly convert to protestant religion and lifestyle. That's not a melting pot, that's my way or the highway. Why can't our cohesion be rooted in the very diversity that you are so fearful of?

"Before Americans ever adopted a creed, Americans were a people and America was a nation. Those who equate the creed with the nation are contradicted by the history they distort. They rewrite that history, like Winston in the Ministry of Truth, to convert America into something she never was: an imperial democracy imposing her ideology on a resisting world, to the ruin of the republic she was meant to be. And they will turn America into something she cannot survive becoming: a multicultural, multiethnic, multilingual Tower of Babel."

Pat Buchanan

Not to dwell on the food aspect per se, just using it as representative....

I know people here (all white) who have become SO assimilated that they have no idea what actually MAKES good Italian, French, German whatever...

I know some here make fun of velveeta for instance, hell, I do too. However, I know people who honestly think that's pretty much what cheese is, and if you were to ask them to sample something else, they'd wrinkle their nose and say "ewwww...."

That spills over into other aspects of life...like relationships, how various groups relate to each other.

The "velveeta people" seems to have to be hit over the head with a 2 x 4 to get the point. There's no understanding of a subtle hand gesture, look to the side, a "code" word quietly spoken.

I feel assimilation took the edge off them. I may not like certain peppers in my salad, but I'm willing to taste/eat them because it makes the rest of it more clear. In addition, I've found a pepper I didn't like is just fine if it's tempered with a sharp cheese.


Velveeta people. On white bread with a piece of soggy iceburg lettuce. Their ancestors would have been turning in their graves crying eat some brie, eat some rocket, have some challah!!!

That's called an oxymoron my friend.

OMG - Atavistic quoted Pat Buchanan!!

I rest my case.

For those that immigrated here in the 70s as adults we'd be looking at thier children now having their grandchildren.

Unlike my great-grandparents (and thoseo of many others) though, many of teh recent groups don't wantto send thier children tyo public schools that teach U.S. History and English, they want school taught in their native language and to teach their cultures.

Many of the more recent groups of immigrants won't have their grandchildren being indisguishable from their peers. We have 3rd generation kids growing up still speaking their grandparent's native language as their primary language. Previoulsy that was limited to very small enclaves in places like NYC.



Which food are you referring to? You can't honestly say that things like spaghetti or keilbasa (or Polish Sausage) and potatoes haven't become standard fare for people of pretty much every ethnic orign that are in this country. Some Mexican food has been integrated into the American culture as well (Thanks to Taco Hell - Yeash!). Others - not so much. You can find hints of them in larger cities but they haven't melded into standard fare.



The enclaves that are being built every day. It isn't just a few innner city barrios any more. Entire cities/towns are being taken over by different groups.

It's not an oxymoron! We have a common trait - our diversity! I am italian, scottish, german, irish. I am diverse myself and I am a cohesive unit (mostly).

Yes.... big points for quoting Buchanan!

Fishin - what cities/enclaves? I'd like to do some research.

From wiki (on a princeton website):