Like my high school history teacher once said, America is more of a salad bowl than a melting pot. Melting pot implies that different people’s, styles, theories, ideas, are “melted” together, which the chapter clearly shows is not true. A salad bowl approach implies that people are all combined together to create one homogeneous dish – but the elements are nonetheless preserved in their original identity.
Beyond the Melting Pot shows an interesting preface to how ethnic groups have maintained their identity in the 1960s and on over several generations of living in the U.S. It’s even more interesting to note that Daniel Patrick Moynihan, an almost 20 year long Senator, wrote this book. I wonder if there were any ontological assumptions when he gathered his evidence.
I think many of the arguments used would not be applicable today – like when he says that descendants of German, Irish, or Italian countries don’t seem committed to their countries foreign policy. Now of course with the current administration, and the problems going on in the European Union, people are more concerned about international relations than ever. Some good points he makes are about Americanization and assimilation. He mentions that American culture is very attractive to Russians, which I can attest to coming from a family made up entirely of Russian (former USSR) immigrants. Many of the older Russians in my community are incredibly proud to be “American” (whatever that means). Moreover, it is true that the second generation Russians are slowly losing the language and values we once had. Interestingly enough, my parents, and all of my friends parents, have forced their children to speak Russian at home and even go to a private Russian school here in Brooklyn for most of our K-8 education.
New York City has the largest immigrant population of any city in the nation and it continues to double throughout the decades. In fact, in 2011, immigrants represented 44% of the City’s workforce in 2011 [1]. These immigrants helped revitalize the neighborhoods like Coney Island, Flushing, and Jackson Heights – which starkly contrasts what we read about in week 1 readings about the gentrifying neighborhoods with immigrants and low income residents being pushed out.
[1] https://www.osc.state.ny.us/reports/immigration/NYC_Immigration_Rpt_8-2014.pdf
– Ariella Trotsenko
Jerome Krase
March 6, 2017 — 11:30 am
Nice reflection and it is important to realize that both predictions about the future and selections about the past, even the contemporary scene can be less than accurate. For Glazer and Moynihan as for other commentators on a particular period, ideology influences perception. Thinking of Mort Sahl’s comedic spectrum of political views, Glazer and Moynihan would be on the right of center at the time or neoconservative.