Melting Pot
The United States has not moved from the "melting pot" to the "salad bowl." Those who suggest that this is the case are entirely unaware of the nation's history, which shows that every new generation of immigrants brings its own language, culture and traditions. It is only over the passage of time that their children and grandchildren adopt the norms, language and common culture of the nation. Evidence from the past shows that this has always been the case. It is only because people see the contemporary period as somehow unique because they are experiencing it, and past starts to blur once we move past a generation or two that anyone would think of the past and present differently. This paper will show that the melting pot paradigm existed in past generations, and that the patterns of settlement and cultural assimilation are basically the same today as they ever were.
The Concepts
It is important to understand the concepts with which we are working. The melting pot theory has been around for at least one hundred years, and serves to explain the pattern of cultural assimilation for new immigrants to the United States. Writing in 1915 in The Nation, notes that the melting pot reflects when people assimilate to the dominant culture -- in this case it was successive waves of immigrants from different European countries. They come to speak English, adopt local clothes and customs and political attitudes as well (Kallen, 1915).
Over time, the melting pot concept has been challenged by academics. It was, of course, rather quaint and that era was not necessarily known for having the same high standards of scholarship that we have today. Bisin and Verdier (2000) note that there are a number of different patterns by which immigrants retain elements of one culture, and adopt others. Such intergenerational transmission of ethnic and religious traits can occur with marriage or intermarriage between groups, and the rates at which new immigrants become economically...
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