Melting Pot Goodfriend, Joyce D.

Melting Pot

Goodfriend, Joyce D. Before the Melting Pot: Society and Culture in Colonial New York City, 1664-1730. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994.

Today, New York City is called the most diverse city in the world, the city that most embodies America's ideal of the melting pot. However, perhaps because of the famous photographs of the 19th and early 20th century, New York's plurality and diversity is often thought of as a relatively recent historical phenomenon. Before the Melting Pot by Joyce D. Goodfriend is subtitled Society and Culture in Colonial New York City, 1664-1730 (Princeton University Press, 1994). It highlights the surprising fact, to many Americans, that the story of American diversity and immigration did not begin in the 19th century and has its roots early on, before America even officially became 'America.'

Goodfriend's analysis is a potent reminder of the fact that America is a nation founded by immigrants. Early New York City was made up of a heterogeneous blend of populations that came to the land's borders for different reasons. New York did not suddenly transform itself into a city divided into little Italy, of Eastern European Jewish and Chinese neighborhoods, rather it began as a blend of ethnicities, and even after the English government came to dominate its political life, the groups that had lived there before the English still kept their cultures alive. New York City had an unusually diverse ethnic makeup, with substantial numbers of Dutch, English, Scottish, Irish, French, German, and Jewish immigrants, as well as African-Americans who came as forced immigrants in the form of slaves.

Goodfriend gives particular attention to New York's Dutch population. The city was, after all, once New Amsterdam. The Dutch had a profound impact upon its society and culture, a process she and other researchers before her have called "Batvavianization," as opposed to Anglicanization. The relationship between the English and the Dutch was that of a dialogue, not of a cultural monologue, as is often assumed, she writes, stressing the uniqueness of her thesis in contrast to previous authors who have given in her view, too much emphasis to how the Dutch were changed by the English. Although the author does not deny the fact that the Dutch eventually assimilated into English customs and ways, the early English adopted Dutch culture as well as vice versa. Historians must look beyond the influence of formal institutions, like the English government, and shift their eyes to the cultural interactions that took place between the city's different ethnic groups. Although the dominance of the English of the political and educational institutions did finally result in Anglicization of the city's language and dominant cultural discourse, the process was far more lengthy than previously assumed.

Goodfriend uses church records from the time to argue that the Dutch Reformed Church was one way that Dutch defined themselves against the English as unique. Women in particular were important in keeping alive the traditions of Dutch culture. The reason for their loyalty may have been the fact that their faith and culture were so inexorably intertwined -- the Dutch usually married other Dutch, an intergroup loyalty that continued well into the 18th century. In fact, while most English males married outside of their ethnic group, and became culturally Dutch as a result (80% decided not to join a church of another ethnic group), Dutch women usually married other Dutch males.

Towards the second half of the 18th century, it became more difficult for the Dutch children to obtain an education in Dutch language, and gradually conversion to the Anglican faith increased amongst all non-English groups, including the French. By placing sanctions on Dutch language schools, the English authorities successfully steered Dutch children to English schools. Once, Dutch had been the language at home and within church, but no more. The French Huguenots as well had a thriving community, with their own religious and social institutions, and religion was an equally important force as they too created their own churches early on. They had fled France to escape persecution and were eager to embrace their religious freedom at first. But around the time the Dutch began to lose their language and schools, the French also became more Anglicized and attended English, rather than French institutions of worship.

It must not be forgotten, writes Goodfriend, that it was the Dutch, rather than the English or the French who dominated the city until the middle of the 18th century. Until then, the Dutch made up a greater proportion of New York's population and dominated most trades. Yet even Goodfriend, despite her tendency to stress the importance social, religious, and cultural practices vs. formal political institutions cannot deny the fact that the pressures of the English government eventually resulted in a more hegemonic society, linguistically and socially, by 1730. She focuses on three Dutch men, and studies how the family changed from the English conquest in 1664 until 1730, and by the end of the period, their ancestors had become far more Anglicized, despite her desire to diminish the influence of this cultural process.