Fluent Essays

Is the United Sates a melting pot? Are we becoming a blended nation with common traditions? If we are a melting pot, why such a need to talk about diversity? read article and answer question in 1 good paragraph Journal of Ethnic and Cultural Studies Copyright 2019 2019, Vol. 6, No. 1, 142-151 ISSN: 2149-1291 142 A Critical Literary Review of the Melting Pot and Salad Bowl Assimilation and Integration Theories Mohamed Berray1 Florida State University, FL, USA Immigrant communities have varying degrees of acculturation based on their predispositions for specific cultural norms and their propensity to exhibit similarities in principles, values, and a common lifestyle with dominant racial and ethnic groups. Food metaphors like the Melting Pot and the Salad Bowl theories have illustrated different approaches to integration by explaining the political and power dynamics between dominant and minority groups. Yet, little consideration is given in either theory to existing local contexts that influence the actions of these groups. By combining ethnic identities into homogenous outcomes, food metaphors empower dominant ethnic groups and set the tone for discriminatory legislative policies that eliminate programs aimed at helping minorities. For refugees, this obscures their actual socio-political circumstances and erases their historical experiences. This paper aims to review and critique existing literature about metaphorical homogenous assimilation and integration theories, with experiences from around the world. This paper postulates that using a homogenous common good as the baseline metaphor for assimilation and integration disregards the individual accommodations that need to be made for both dominant and minority communities. These accommodations, although sometimes separate from the collective good, have a significant role in creating conducive environments for diversity and inclusion. Keywords: integration, ethnicity, identity, melting pot, Salad Bowl, assimilation. Introduction People are not food. Vague food metaphors transmit racist views and perpetuate disparities in interpretation (Gloor, 2006; López-Rodríguez, 2014). Although these metaphors have helped explain current political and power dynamics between dominant and minority groups, it is unclear what their applications are through specific legislative and social actions at the national level. The main disadvantage of food metaphors proposed in this paper is that combining ethnic identities into homogenous outcomes empowers dominant groups to believe that minorities are closer to them than they are to their countries/cultures of origin. This lack of cultural sensitivity victimizes minority groups through inappropriate mainstream cultural commentary and assertions with the expectations of common understanding and lack of recourse on the part of minority groups. Even when true integration happens, each individual retains a significant portion of their cultural origin that is not easily lost. Coercive policies to homogenize identities in the Melting Pot theory makes it both difficult, and in some instances impossible, to achieve the intended assimilation of minority ethnic groups in host societies. The fear of losing one’s native culture as a price for integration is sometimes is a price too heavy to pay. Instead of food metaphors, we need inclusive theories that coalesce discordant viewpoints of diverse societies into admissible heterogeneity practices of the represented groups. The Melting Pot Theory The Melting Pot theory first rose to prominence when in 1782, J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, an immigrant from France, described the demographic homogeneity of the United States as comprising “individuals of all nations….melted into a new race of men, whose labors and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world” (St. John de Crevecoeur, 1782, para. 5). In his view, Americans are “western pilgrims” who carry with them industrial skills from the East, and will finish the great circle of their pilgrimage in the United States. According to Laubeova (2005), St. John de Crevecoeur envisioned a prosperous American labor force comprised of new races with greater influence on U.S. standing on the world stage. Almost a century later in 1845, Ralph Waldo Emerson, a poet who led the American transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century, expanded on St. John de Crevecoeur’s theory by describing America as “the Utopian product of a culturally and racially mixed smelting pot” (Emerson et al., 1971, p. 116). In 1875, an article by Titus Munson Coan, in his attempt to describe the smelting process of becoming an American, 1 Correspondence: Social Sciences Librarian for Political Sciences, Public Policy, International Affairs. Coordinator for Government Information, Florida State University Libraries, 0027L Strozier Library | 116 Honors Way | Tallahassee, FL 32306 | E-mail: [email protected] mailto:[email protected] Berray, M. 143 introduced the Melting Pot theory as the fusing of individualities, including any traits of immigrant religion and race, down a blast furnace in a “democratic alembic like chips of brass in a melting pot” (Coan, 1875, p. 463). The Melting Pot theory was further popularized in 1908 by Israel Zangwill’s Broadway production, “The Melting Pot”, about two lovers from Russian Jewish and Russian Cossack families. A character in the play, David, says “America is God’s crucible, the great melting-pot where all the races of Europe are melting and reforming” (Zangwill, 1921, p. 33). Zangwill was referring specifically to the idea that America is a country where it is pointless and almost impossible for immigrants – the Germans and French, the Irish and English, and Jews and Russians – to continue their feuds and hatred. For the new immigrants, it was pointless, unfavorable, and to some extent impossible, for them to nourish their animosity and prejudices towards one another. This impetus to assimilate was described by Wagener (2009) as an adaptation of minority groups to the cultural norms and “structural characteristics” of the culturally, politically, and economically dominant group (p.3). This adaptation to dominant norms reduces linguistic and cultural differences between ethnic minorities and host communities with the expectations of integration into mainstream society. The newly formed integrated society consists of pre-existing identities in association with newly introduced forms (Calderon Berumen, 2019). It involves blending lifestyles between immigrants and hosts, converging within and among themselves to a common lifestyle that continues to evolve over time (Meier, 2019; Park & Burgess, 1924; Woofter, 2019). Though heavily criticized, especially by alternate integration and assimilation theories like the Salad Bowl, the Melting Pot theory has its advantages. First, it consolidates the concept of citizenship by creating an environment that integrates different ethnicities to celebrate national pride under a single banner. As said by Miller (2005), “citizenship provides a reference point. Our personal lives and commitments may be very different, but we are all equally citizens, and it is as citizens that we advance claims in the public realm and assess the claims made by others” (p. 41). By expanding citizenship, the Melting Pot theory, by extension, also expands national identity to be inclusive of different ethnicities and the values they bring with them. Secondly, it removes the singular homogenous identity attached to nation states, i.e., one federal government, a single national flag, defined territory, singular passport, all of which can be extended to mean a single national identity. The Melting Pot theory redefines this concept and solidifies the idea that national identity can be made up of multiple identities fused together under a single national emblem. In other words, it promotes a sense of community and social solidarity. Citizenship provides a formidable compromise to integration because it is conferred not by a measure of deviation or replacement of one’s cultural values from their countries of origin, but by a measure of adaptation to the laws and values in host societies (Lafer & Tarman, 2019). In the United States for example, the U.S. Congress passed a joint resolution in 1940 requesting that the President of the United States issue an annual proclamation declaring the 3rd Sunday in May each year as “I Am An American Day” (54 Stat. 178) in recognition of all who had attained American citizenship. Although this resolution was repealed in 1952, a new law was passed designating September 17 as “Citizenship Day” to recognize those who have attained American citizenship, and to commemorate “the formation and signing, on September 17, 1787, the Constitution of the United States” (66 Stat. 9). A 2004 amendment to the Omnibus Spending Bill later declared September 17 as Constitution Day and Citizenship Day (36 U.S. Code § 106). When immigrants naturalize in the United States, they swear to support the Constitution and renounce and abjure absolutely and entirely all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which the applicant was before a subject or citizen (8 U.S. Code § 1448). Upon attainment of U.S. Citizenship, immigrants still retain their cultural and personal values of their countries of origin. Attainment of U.S. Citizenship, therefore, welcomes immigrants to the United States, whilst granting them the opportunity to retain their individuality, including practicing their faith and cultural beliefs of their countries of origin. The Melting Pot theory will therefore continue to hold value as an allegory for national unity so long as substituent ethnicities are recognized and ethnic multiplicity is considered an essential component within U.S. citizenship. The Salad Bowl Theory Starting in the 1960s, a new vision of American pluralism arose metaphorically similar to the salad bowl (Thornton, 2012). Compared to the melting pot, the Salad Bowl theory maintains the unique identities of individuals that would otherwise be lost to assimilation. The immediate advantage of the Salad Bowl theory is that it acknowledges the discrete identities and cultural differences of a multicultural society. This appreciation for the individual contributions of each ethnic group to society transcends the overarching ascendance of the dominant culture at the expense of imperceptible minority groups. Contrary to the Melting Pot theory where the identity and influence of the dominant ethnic group prevails regardless of the transformation resulting from the assimilation and cultural morphology, the Salad Bowl retains the individuality and independence of ethnic groups, and permits their existence side-by-side dominant cultures. This removes the pressure to create Journal of Ethnic and Cultural Studies Copyright 2019 2019, Vol. 6, No. 1, 142-151 ISSN: 2149-1291 144 homogenous identities in the Melting Pot theory, especially since such homogenous identities are not representative in equal proportion of their constituent identities. The Salad Bowl theory, given its shortcomings, provides more integrative possibilities than the melting pot. Metaphorically speaking, we can be selective with the ingredients we add to our salad, leaving some out, and increasing the amounts of others based on our needs. Thus, not only does the salad bowl metaphor allow for the individuality of ethnic identities it represents, but it also paves the way for selective integration between ethnic groups based on their need to integrate in host societies. This advantage of the Salad Bowl theory holds important application to immigrant communities giving their different propensity to integrate based on their predispositions for specific cultural norms and lifestyles in their host societies. According to Wagener (2009), people with a common lifestyle will “belong to the same social milieu if their ways of life, principles, norms and values exhibit similarity” (p. 5). Therefore, any attempts by assimilation policies at narrowing differences and dissimilarities in lifestyles between immigrants ad dominant societies are in fact contingent on measures that are relative to exogenous and endogenous reference standards in the host country (Wagner, 2009). This approach can be intrinsically misplaced. Take race and language as examples: culturally dominant societies of the same race who speak the same language can be fundamentally different in their values and norms (Tarman & Gürel, 2017). Immigrants of different races who do not speak the dominant language but with similar predispositions in their countries of origins can share values predominant in their host societies. Foner (2000) explained this using the example of Jamaican women in New York with higher employment rates than Dominicans. This is because Jamaicans have English language expertise and slightly higher educational levels. But also, Jamaican society has a strong tradition of female employment, unlike Dominicans where women have traditionally withdrawn from the workforce to symbolize their household’s respectability and elevated economic status (Foner, 2000). Similar observations have been attributed to the successes of Asian students, where cultural factors play a significant role in shaping parents’ expectations, including enrolment in after-school institutions that “prepare Korean and Chinese children for exams in the city’s specialized high schools” (Foner, 2000, p.258). Acceptance of these diverse values as integral to host societies can help bridge the gap, rather than exclusive policies that aim of preserving dominant cultures at the expense of integration. According to Borjas (1994), immigrants with high levels of productivity that rapidly adapt to host country conditions play a role in significantly improving the economy, lending him to appeal to natives that they “need not be concerned about the possibility of these immigrants [increasing] expenditures on social assistance programs” (p. 1667). Critiques of Metaphorical Assimilation and Integration Theories: The Melting Pot and the Salad Bowl There are many critiques of the Melting Pot theory. It’s an “Anglo-conformist classic assimilation theory” (Brown & Bean, 2006, online) that expects minority cultures to morph into a society with norms, values, and behaviors that reflect the dominant culture. In other words, people of different cultures combine so as to “lose their discrete identities and yield a final product of uniform consistency and flavor, different from the original inputs” (Gloor, 2006, p. 29). This unnecessary burden of expectation imposes on both the dominant and the minority culture the need to converge, becoming more similar over time (Kivisto, 2004). Not only is such an expectation unrealistic, it sets the tone for discriminatory legislative policies by eliminating programs aimed at helping minorities. According to Gloor (2006), such coercive assimilation policies induce fear into minorities seeking to preserve their heritage, and threaten to fracture the common ground social framework that holds the inclusive unity of groups that melting pot theorists claim to be protecting. Uniform ethno-morphological practices also do not allow for vital customizations to accommodate successful lifestyles of diverse citizens. This practice is widely observed in current media commentaries in light of racial tensions in America. The assertion that [we are all American] and claims that statements like [a black man being shot by police officer] is racially inflammatory, disempower the African American community to advocate against racial bias and discriminatory social policies that disenfranchises them. This logic minimizes the fact that we all belong to different races, with diverse and unequal historical experiences that cannot, and should not, be easily subsumed into a single American melting pot. At the end of the day, accumulated human dispositions that lead to defined cultural identities cannot be represented by ingredients used in a melting pot of cultures. The growth and development of social lifestyles and interactions, education, language, different means of survival, and upbringings are each separate components of our cultural identities that interact differently with different (dominant in this case) societies, and cannot be lost or assimilated in unison to (with) those of host societies. A key shortcoming of the Melting Pot theory is that it ignores existing local contexts that influence the choices and actions of both dominant and minority groups, and the impacts of these on acculturation. It’s important to note that when immigrants travel to the host countries, they do so with intent, and mostly, with the mindset of becoming integral to their new societies. When integration doesn’t come easily, it is not always from refusal by immigrants to adapt to their new societies, nor is it always from fear, with the pretext that assimilation Berray, M. 145 takes away from their preexisting cultural norms and values. Instead, as will be explained in upcoming sections, different immigrant communities have different propensities to integrate based on their predispositions for specific cultural norms and lifestyles from their host societies. It is also important in this context to distinguish assimilation from integration. According to Swaidan (2018), assimilation occurs when “individuals of the acculturating group choose to adopt the dominant culture” (p. 40). This view is supported by (Phinney, Horenezyk, Liebkind, & Vedder, 2001) who described assimilation as taking place when a group views its own culture negatively and adopts the culture of the receiving society. Integration on the other hand, occurs when “there is an interest in both maintaining the original culture and simultaneously seeking to participate as an integral part of the dominant culture” (Swaidan, 2018, p.40). Integration therefore refers to the processes, and the systems and structures in place to allow minorities (immigrant groups) to attain opportunities afforded long- term citizens (Alba & Foner, 2014), and other societal goals such as improved socioeconomic positions and inclusion in a broad range of societal institutions (Berry, 1997). What immigrants ask for within their host societies, is the ability to integrate whilst retaining their cultural identities at birth. According to Gloor (2006), these could “serve as a compromise between full assimilation and multiculturalism” (p. 31), a dialogue that redefines the objective for multiethnic societies and allows for diversity and inclusion. This desire for immigrants to retain their cultures has been extensively researched and proven to be true. Bakker, van der Zee, and van Oudenhoven (2006) found that immigrant ethnic minorities prefer to retain aspects of their culture such as language, religion, and traditions as they integrate into host cultures. In many instances, this also includes forming social ties with other communities in exile with which they share similar characteristics. Even when similarities exist between immigrant communities and dominant host societies, the fear of losing one’s native culture as a price for integration is sometimes seen as a price too heavy to pay. In many cases, dominant culture stereotypes that affiliate immigrants with existing minorities in the host society have forced immigrants to distinguish themselves by clinging to their cultures and emphasizing their linguistic and traditional characteristics that set them apart. This distinguishing behavior has been observed in Spanish-speaking immigrants who do not want to be confused with Puerto Ricans, and in dark- skinned Indian immigrants who might be confused with African Americans (Foner, 2000). Bertsch (2013) also studied European immigrants who bear resemblance with their American counterparts and concluded that although they identify as Americans based on their residence in the United States, they do not readily assimilate because in doing so, they might lose valued cultural characteristics from their countries of origin. This differentiation of ethnic groups, and the creation of a bounded conceptual space to self-identify, also lies at the heart of the definition of ethnic identities. According to Ahmed (2016), ethnic identities are defined as the “aspect of a person’s self-conceptualization which results from identification with a broader group in opposition to others on the basis of perceived cultural differentiation and/or common descent” (p. 2). Ethnic thickness, as it is called, refers to a strong sense of commitment to one’s ethnic group. A looser sense of commitment has been termed ethnic thinness (Cornell & Hartmann, 2007). Ahmed’s definition is derived from Jones (1997) who defined an ethnic group as “any group of people who set themselves apart and/or are set apart by others with whom they interact or co-exist on the basis of their perceptions of cultural differentiation and/or common descent” (p. xiii). This tendency of cultural fusion in the Melting Pot theory shares a striking similarity with the Salad Bowl theory that has also not been discussed in the literature. Similar to the literal meaning of a melting pot, a salad bowl is a combined dish, rather than the attention to the individual vegetables. In both theories, the final product is different from the individual ingredients. They both promote the idea of a culmination, and the coming to life of a finished meal, rather than highlighting the ingredients. Both theories focus on the end products of assimilation, and not the processes that lead to it. The end products – “melting pot” and “salad bowl” – are also defined in strict configurations, leaving little chance to deviate from the “recipe”. It is clear in the Melting Pot theory that ingredients representing individual identities in the recipe are lost to the dominant identity base. A can of tomato soup will still preserve its dominant identity regardless of the composite additions to it. To also expect that integration and assimilation happens in a manner that resembles cooking a meal, is itself biased based on our cultural understandings of those meals. This raises an important point. Like the melting pot, the salad bowl is a derivative process. In real life, this refers to the coexistence of different ethnicities side-by-side in peace and harmony with shared cultural and identity practices that serve their common good. The problem with using the “common good” as a conclusive baseline metaphor of assimilation is that they disregard the individual accommodations that need to be made for both dominant and minority communities. These accommodations, as much as they seem separate from the collective good, have a significant role in creating conducive environments for diversity and inclusion. Yet, in many instances, the inter-bonding between minority groups and the dominant counterpart is preferred and Journal of Ethnic and Cultural Studies Copyright 2019 2019, Vol. 6, No. 1, 142-151 ISSN: 2149-1291 146 antecedent to the intra-bond that exist within a minority group, and between one minority group and another. The next section of this paper addresses this. Selectivity in Integration: The Case of Ethnicity in Exile The field of migration and refugee studies has studied the bond between different groups in exile in more detail. This socio-anthropological theory called ethnicity in exile postulates that the existing local contexts of host countries influence the choices and actions of immigrant groups from different origins. The definition of ethnicity used in this context is derived from Berry (1997) who defined ethnicity as the manifestation of “social and psychological phenomena associated with a culturally constructed group identity” (p. xiii). This is important because, as put by Ahmed (2016), the formation of ethnicity requires an interaction of social and cultural processes. The Case of Refugees: Many researchers have studied the interaction of social and cultural processes and the effects of altering their natural occurrences. Moro (2004) studied interethnic relationships between Sudanese and Ugandan refugees in Egypt. His research proved that the diversity of people with different histories living in the same location influenced the relations of ethnic groups, sometimes for the better (Moro, 2004). Malkki (1995) studied how refugees from different ethnic groups in former Yugoslavia have reshaped their identities based on existing local contexts in different host countries. The findings of her research are that structural factors in the host countries of the refugees influence their experiences and shape their ethnic identities. Malkki’s research demonstrates that domestic policies and practices in host countries with dominant ethnic groups create conditions that resulted in ethnic boundaries having little meaning in influencing the formation of identities and the social enterprise of refugees from the post Yugoslav states. This view is supported by Ahmed (2016) who described the boundaries between ethnic groups to be as much psychological as cultural and social, and has to be understood in intergroup perspectives. Specifically in the case of refugees, their common needs usually places them in contrast with resident dominant groups and characterizes them with distinct identities. In many cases, these immigrants find themselves living with other minorities, including native-born minorities. As a result, they join together to pursue common goals, sometimes in the face of common discrimination and prejudice (Foner, 2000). What this means is that conditions of exile may in fact augment and strengthen the formation of social networks between different ethnic groups to help enhance their integration in new societies. According to Korac (2004), these constructions of ethnic and identity processes leveraged by the conditions of settlement in host countries are pivotal to addressing the sociopolitical consequences of the displacement of people fleeing ethnic strife. This in return influences successful post-conflict rehabilitation and reconstruction of war-torn societies, contingent on facilitated settlement experiences and reshaped identity processes of repatriates. Seclusion of Dominant Groups: The advantage of extending the theoretical underpinnings of ethnicity in exile as a vantage point in filling the shortcomings of both the Salad Bowl and the Melting Pot theories is that they also both apply to the acceptance of dominant ethnic groups by minorities. Many times, dominant ethnic groups, including whites in the United States, have been stereotyped for their racial seclusiveness. These social racial groupings, such as the “redneck”, have been criticized as conservative and racially segregationist. However, their social lifestyles alone do not amount to racism, except if done with discriminatory intent. Such stereotypical characterizations of rednecks further exposes the misplacement of ethnic differentiation that has been impressed on ethnic minorities. The reality is redneck is a pejorative term for lower class working white people dating back to the indentured servitude of farm workers throughout the South and the Caribbean colonies. During those times, the whiter the skin, the richer and more refined the individual. Having a literal redneck meant a field worker and thus a lower class. According to Huber (1995), one of the earliest use of the name “redneck” was in 1893 when Hubert A. Shands reported that the word was used by upper class [whites] in Mississippi to distinguish themselves from poorer residents of rural districts. The word later entered the political discourse of the State in the 1980s when “Democrats used it to denigrate farmers within their party who supported populist reforms” (Ferguson, 1953, p. 519). Since then the pejorative term has been used to denigrate the rural poor “white of the American South and particularly one who holds conservative, racist, or reactionary views” (Huber, 1995). By the mid-sixties, the connection between redneck and …