Melting Pot Metaphor in Richard

Melting Pot Metaphor in Richard Rodriguez's Hunger Of Memory The Melting Pot Metaphor: Rodriguez's Hunger of Memory There are still so many racial issues which drive the status of social groups around the nation. The United States is still very racially divided. Yet, many of us within the nation still cling to an outdated idea that all immigrants and ethnic groups living in the United States want to voluntarily give up their cultural roots in order to assimilate into the majority culture.

Individuals like Horace Kallen then see this as unrealistic. In many ways, Richard Rodriguez does see the metaphor as outdated; however, it is clear that he does agree the assimilation process is a combining of cultures that generate a new hybrid culture of blended heritages, which is essentially a view that is shared by Gene Yang in his American Born Chinese. The melting pot metaphor presents the process of assimilation as one where different ethnic minorities begin to slowly but surely blend into the majority culture.

Thus, they take on some elements of the majority culture in the process of assimilation; yet, they also contribute some of their own culture into the diverse American environment. Horace Kallen believed the melting pot is unrealistic, as the majority culture often is avoidant of accepting any elements of minority cultures. In some ways, Rodriquez does agree. He sees that it is unrealistic in the romanticized way it was envisioned in the past.

The idea that all ethnic cultures are so wiling to assimilate into American culture is the most unrealistic part of the concept. There are instead hybrid cultures emerging out of an extremely tense situation, where ethnic minorities are both pulled back towards their cultural heritage as well as being expected to move forward in an English white dominated nation. Essentially, the white majority demands full assimilation of minority cultures, often without wanting any sort of contribution from their own unique cultural heritages.

In this way, Rodriquez does tend to agree with Kallen. Yet, in many ways, Rodriguez disagrees with Kallen. He sees that the process of assimilation is like a bunch of hybrid cultures melting together as they encounter each other more and more. Assimilating into the majority society includes the process of an ethnic minority group learning and blending in their culture with the dominate majority's culture. One example Rodriguez gives of this is the concept of bilingual education.

In this, courses are available in a multitude of languages and blends of languages, so that minority groups can enjoy learning within the context of their own first language. Here, Rodriguez states that "bilingual schooling was popularized in the seventies, that decade when middle-class ethnics began to resist the process of assimilation -- the American melting pot" (Rodriguez 26). Bilingual education represents a resistance to full on assimilation, but shows how many ethnic groups blend their culture with some positive elements of the majority culture.

This is a type of assimilation that often allows some minority groups to maintain a connection to their previous culture. The white majority does become influenced in many ways, even though it may deny it. However, this process is very painful for many minority groups that feel helpless in the terms by which they must be assimilated into the majority culture.

Thus, Rodriguez is saying that the more correct metaphor is not a melting pot where cultures can blend together seamlessly, but one where there is more of a forced separation that forces the ethnic minority to loose their previous cultural identity. During the process of assimilation, many within the minority culture feel that they either have to assimilate or feel the consequences, which can often include isolation and oppression when they cling to their cultural heritage too much.

Thus, there is room for assimilation, but only for those who feel like they must give up a large portion of their own unique cultural heritages as such, Rodriguez states how "those middle-class ethnics who scorn assimilation seem to me filled with a decadent self-pity, obsessed by the burden of public life" (Rodriguez 27). Yet, when a group tries to hard to retain its ethnic roots, there seems to be just as much pain. This pain comes from the oppression of the majority group here in the United States.

When minority groups try to retain their cultural heritage, they are often met with resistance and even scorn from the larger white majority. "Dangerously, they romanticize public separateness and they trivialize.