The melting pot is a metaphor for a heterogeneous society becoming more homogeneous, the different elements "melting together" into a harmonious whole with a common culture. It is particularly used to describe the assimilation of immigrants to the United States ^ b. English is the de facto language of American government and the sole language spoken at home by 80% of Americans age five and older. Spanish is the second most commonly spoken language; the melting-together metaphor was in use by the 1780s.
After 1970 the desirability of assimilation and the melting pot model was challenged by proponents of multiculturalism Multiculturalism is the acceptance or promotion of multiple ethnic cultures, applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, usually at the organizational level, e.g. schools, businesses, neighborhoods, cities or nations. In this context, multiculturalists advocate extending equitable status to distinct ethnic and religious groups without, who assert that cultural differences within society are valuable and should be preserved, proposing the alternative metaphor of the salad bowl The salad bowl concept suggests that the integration of the many different cultures of United States residents combine like a salad, as opposed to the more prolific notion of a cultural melting pot. In Canada this concept is more commonly known as the cultural mosaic. In the salad bowl model, various American cultures are juxtaposed — like salad – different cultures mix, but remain distinct.
Contents |
Origins of the term
In the eighteenth and nineteenth century, the metaphor of a "crucible A crucible is a refractory container used for metal, glass, and pigment production as well as a number of modern laboratory processes, which can withstand temperatures high enough to melt or otherwise alter its contents. Historically, they have usually been made of clay, but they can be made of any material with a higher temperature resistance" or "(s)melting pot" was used to describe the fusion of different nationalities, ethnicities and cultures. It was used together with concepts of America as an ideal republic Republicanism is the ideology of governing a nation as a republic, where the head of state is appointed by means other than heredity, often elections. The exact meaning of republicanism varies depending on the cultural and historical context. The sometimes contrary definitions are all covered in this article and a "city upon a hill City upon a hill is a phrase derived from the metaphor of Salt and Light in the Sermon on the Mount of Jesus given in the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew 5:14 states "You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden."" or new promised land The Promised Land is a term used to describe the land promised by God, according to the Hebrew Bible, to the Israelites. The promise is firstly made to Abraham (Genesis 15:18-21) and then renewed to his son Isaac, and to Isaac's son Jacob (Genesis 28:13), Abraham's grandson. The promised land was given to their descendants and was described in.[citation needed] It was a metaphor for the idealized process of immigration American immigration refers to the movement of non-residents to the United States. Immigration has been a major source of population growth and cultural change throughout much of American history. The economic, social, and political aspects of immigration have caused controversy regarding ethnicity, economic benefits, jobs for non -immigrants, and colonization The start of the European colonization of the Americas is typically dated to 1492, although there was at least one earlier colonization effort. The first known Europeans to reach the Americas were the Vikings during the 11th century, who established several colonies in Greenland and one short-lived settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows (51°N) in the by which different nationalities, cultures and "races" (a term that could encompass nationality, ethnicity and race) were to blend into a new, virtuous community, and it was connected to utopian Utopia is a name for an ideal community or society possessing a seemingly perfect socio-politico-legal system. The word was invented by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempted to create an ideal society, and visions of the emergence of an American "new man". While "melting" was in common use the exact term "melting pot" came into general usage in 1908, after the premiere of the play The Melting Pot by Israel Zangwill Zangwill was born in London on January 21, 1864 in a family of Jewish immigrants from Czarist Russia , he dedicated his life to championing the cause of the oppressed. Jewish emancipation, women's suffrage, assimilationism, territorialism and Zionism (understood as a national liberation movement) were all fertile fields for his pen. His brother.
The first use in American literature of the concept of immigrants "melting" into the receiving culture are found in the writings of J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur. In his Letters from an American Farmer (1782) Crevecoeur writes, in response to his own question, "What then is the American, this new man?" that the American is one who "leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the government he obeys, and the new rank he holds. He becomes an American by being received in the broad lap of our great Alma Mater Alma mater , pronounced /ˈælmə ˈmeɪtər/ (UK), /ˈɑːlmə ˈmɑːtər/ (US), was used in ancient Rome as a title for various mother goddesses, especially Ceres or Cybele, and in Medieval Christianity for the Virgin Mary. Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labors and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world."
| “ |
"…whence came all these people? They are a mixture of English, Scotch, Irish, French, Dutch, Germans, and Swedes... What, then, is the American, this new man? He is neither a European nor the descendant of a European; hence that strange mixture of blood, which you will find in no other country. I could point out to you a family whose grandfather was an Englishman, whose wife was Dutch, whose son married a French woman, and whose present four sons have now four wives of different nations. He is an American, who, leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds. . . . The Americans were once scattered all over Europe; here they are incorporated into one of the finest systems of population which has ever appeared." − J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer. |
” |
In 1845, Ralph Waldo Emerson Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, philosopher, and poet, best remembered for leading the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. His teachings directly influenced the growing New Thought movement of the mid-1800s. He was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society, alluding to the development of European civilization out of the medieval Dark Ages The Dark Ages is a term referring to the perceived period of cultural and economic decline and disruption that took place in Western Europe following the decline of the Roman Empire. The word is derived from Latin saeculum obscurum , a phrase first recorded in 1602. The label employs traditional light-versus-darkness imagery to contrast the ", wrote in his private journal of America as the Utopian product of a culturally and racially mixed "smelting pot", but only in 1912 were his remarks first published. In his writing, Emerson explicitly welcomed the racial intermixing of whites and non-whites, a highly controversial view during his lifetime.
A magazine article in 1875 used the metaphor explicitly:
- "The fusing process goes on as in a blast-furnace; one generation, a single year even-- transforms the English, the German, the Irish emigrant into an American. Uniform institutions, ideas, language, the influence of the majority, bring us soon to a similar complexion; the individuality of the immigrant, almost even his traits of race and religion, fuse down in the democratic alembic like chips of brass thrown into the melting pot."[1]
In 1893, historian Frederick Jackson Turner Frederick Jackson Turner was an American historian in the early 20th century. He is best known for The Significance of the Frontier in American History also used the metaphor of immigrants melting into one American culture. In his essay The Significance of the Frontier in American History, he referred to the "composite nationality" of the American people, arguing that the frontier A frontier is a political and geographical term referring to areas near or beyond a boundary. 'Frontier' was borrowed into English from French in the 15th century, with the meaning "borderland"--the region of a country that fronts on another country had functioned as a "crucible A crucible is a refractory container used for metal, glass, and pigment production as well as a number of modern laboratory processes, which can withstand temperatures high enough to melt or otherwise alter its contents. Historically, they have usually been made of clay, but they can be made of any material with a higher temperature resistance" where "the immigrants were Americanized, liberated and fused into a mixed race, English in neither nationality nor characteristics."
In his 1905 travel narrative The American Scene, Henry James Henry James, OM – February 28, 1916) was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James refers to cultural intermixing in New York City as a "fusion, as of elements in solution in a vast hot pot."[2].
The exact term "melting pot" came into general usage in the United States after it was used as a metaphor describing a fusion of nationalities, cultures and ethnicities in the 1908 play of the same name, first performed in Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C. , formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States, founded on July 16, 1790. The City of Washington was originally a separate municipality within the Territory of Columbia until an act of Congress in 1871 effectively merged the City and the, where the immigrant protagonist declared:
| “ | "Understand that America is God's Crucible, the great Melting-Pot where all the races of Europe are melting and re-forming! Here you stand, good folk, think I, when I see them at Ellis Island, here you stand in your fifty groups, your fifty languages, and histories, and your fifty blood hatreds and rivalries. But you won't be long like that, brothers, for these are the fires of God you've come to – these are fires of God. A fig for your feuds and vendettas! Germans and Frenchmen, Irishmen and Englishmen, Jews and Russians—into the Crucible with you all! God is making the American."[3] | ” |
Zangwill
In The Melting Pot (1905), Zangwill combined a romantic denouement with a utopian celebration of complete cultural assimilation. The play was an adaptation of William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young "star-cross'd lovers" whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular plays during his lifetime and, along with Hamlet and Macbeth, is one of his most frequently performed plays. Today,, set in New York City New York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over global commerce, finance, media, culture, art, fashion, research, education, and entertainment. As host of the. The play's immigrant protagonist David Quixano, a Russian Jew, falls in love with Vera, a fellow Russian immigrant who is Christian. Vera is an idealistic settlement house worker and David is a musical composer struggling to create an "American symphony" to celebrate his adopted homeland. Together they manage to overcome the old world animosities that threaten to separate them. But then David discovers that Vera is the daughter of the Tsarist officer who directed the pogrom A pogrom is a form of violent riot, a mob attack, either approved or condoned by government or military authorities, directed against a particular group, whether ethnic, religious, or other, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes, businesses, and religious centres, property. The term was originally used to denote extensive that forced him to flee Russia. Horrified, he breaks up with her, betraying his belief in the possibility of transcending religious and ethnic animosities. However, unlike Shakespeare's tragedy, there is a happy ending. At the end of the play the lovers are reconciled.
Reunited with Vera and watching the setting sun gilding the Statue of Liberty The Statue of Liberty (originally called Liberty Enlightening the World ) is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, designed by Frédéric Bartholdi and dedicated on October 28, 1886. The statue, a gift to the United States from the people of France, is of a robed female figure representing Libertas, the Roman, David Quixano has a prophetic vision: "It is the Fires of God round His Crucible. There she lies, the great Melting-Pot--Listen! Can't you hear the roaring and the bubbling? There gapes her mouth, the harbor where a thousand mammoth feeders come from the ends of the world to pour in their human freight." David foresees how the American melting pot will make the nation's immigrants transcend their old animosities and differences and will fuse them into one people: "Here shall they all unite to build the Republic of Man and the Kingdom of God."
Zangwill thus combined the metaphor of the "crucible" or "melting pot" with a celebration of America as an ideal republic and a new promised land. The prophetic words of his Jewish protagonist against the backdrop of the Statue of Liberty allude to Emma Lazarus Emma Lazarus was an American poet born in New York City's famous poem The New Colossus (1883), which celebrated the statue as a symbol of America's democracy and its identity as an immigrant nation[4].
United States
The melting pot idea is most strongly associated with the United States, particularly in reference to "model" immigrant groups of the past. Past generations of immigrants to the United States American immigration refers to the movement of non-residents to the United States. Immigration has been a major source of population growth and cultural change throughout much of American history. The economic, social, and political aspects of immigration have caused controversy regarding ethnicity, economic benefits, jobs for non -immigrants,, it is argued by some[who?], became successful by working to shed their historic identities and adopt the ways of their new country. Typically immigrants absorbed the ways of the "host" society, while loosening to varying degrees their connection to their native culture. This "Ellis Island Ellis Island in New York Harbor was the gateway for millions of immigrants to the United States as the site of the nation's busiest immigration station from 1892 to 1954. Prior to that, the much smaller original island was the site of Fort Gibson and later a naval magazine. The island was greatly expanded with landfill between 1892 and 1934. Since" version of the "melting pot" narrative, equating the melting pot with the mixing of Euro-American immigrants, has been criticized because it overlooks the history of African-Americans African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have origins in any of the black populations of Africa. In the United States, the terms are generally used for Americans with at least partial Sub-Saharan African ancestry, who came to North America mainly as slaves through the Atlantic slave trade The Atlantic Slave Trade, also known as the transatlantic slave trade, was the trading, primarily of African people, to the colonies of the New World that occurred in and around the Atlantic Ocean. It lasted from the 16th to the 19th centuries. Most enslaved people were shipped from West Africa and Central Africa and taken to North and South.
The "melting pot" process has been equated with cultural assimilation Cultural assimilation is a political response to the demographic fact of multi-ethnicity which encourages absorption of the minority into the dominant culture. It is opposed to affirmative philosophy which recognizes and seeks to maintain differences and acculturation Acculturation is the exchange of cultural features that results when groups of individuals having different cultures come into continuous first hand contact; the original cultural patterns of either or both groups may be altered, but the groups remain distinct. The "melting pot" metaphor implies both a melting of cultures and intermarriage of ethnicities An ethnic group is a group of people whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage that is real or assumed. This shared heritage may be based upon putative common ancestry, history, Culture, Traditions, kinship, religion, language, shared territory, nationality or/and physical appearance. Members of an ethnic group are, yet cultural assimilation or acculturation can also occur without intermarriage. Thus African-Americans are fully culturally integrated into American culture and institutions. Yet more than a century after the abolition of slavery, intermarriage between African-Americans and other ethnicities is much less common than between different white ethnicities, or between white and Asian ethnicities. Intermarriage between whites and non-whites, and especially African-Americans, has long been a taboo in the United States, and was illegal in many US states (see anti-miscegenation laws Crime of apartheid · CERD · CEDAW · CDE · ILO C111 · ILO C100 · ILO C169 · Protocol No. 12 ECHR) until 1967[5].
Fri, 27 Aug 2010 07:11:56 GMT+00:00
PR Leap (press release) Although tourists are able to enjoy a real melting pot of different cuisine styles during their time in Kuala Lumpur hotels, up until a few years ago there ...
337px x 500px | 42.30kB
[source page]
http www djgeometrix com http www djgeometrix com images Melting Pot Ad jpg
