America is called
the melting pot because there are people from everywhere around the world, they
have different cultures, different customs, but when they come to America, they
are one, one nation.
Contrary to common
belief, America is actually not a 'melting pot'. America is a 'salad bowl'. A
melting pot implies that people who come into the society assimilate and adopt
the standard of their new adopted society, contributing something along the
way. A salad bowl implies that you hold onto your culture even after you
arrive, and don't take on the characteristics of the new society, so that you
have a mixture of a lot of different things, but you can still tell them apart
like in a salad. Cheese fondue is made up of lots of different ingredients but
you can't point and say "there's the white wine" the way you can say
"there's the tomatoes and there's the celery" in a salad.
Another way of
looking at America as a 'salad bowl' is because there are 'China Towns', 'Korea
Towns', 'Little Ethiopia' to name a few. If you walk into 'China Town'
(especially in San Francisco) it's like you almost really are in China itself.
Historically, the
melting pot notion has not progressed in its entirety within U.S. society, due
in part to the presence of structural barriers, including prejudice and
discrimination, that have limited some immigrant and native-born minority
persons from significant access to the resources and privileges of the dominant
social group. Moreover, within the United States some ethnic people have
actively chosen not to "give up" their native heritage and identity,
despite their desires to participate successfully within the American economy.
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