The United States has historically patted itself on the back for being the world\u2019s melting pot \u2014 the one country where people from all over the world can live together in harmony.<\/p>\n
But as the U.S. turns 250, during one of the most polarized eras in our history, many cultural historians say the idea that we welcome the world with open arms is far more mythical than factual.<\/p>\n
Although the use of the term melting pot to describe the influx of people from different cultures migrating to the U.S. dates back to the 1800s, it became part of our lexicon largely thanks to a Broadway play in 1908.<\/p>\n
\u201cMelting Pot: The Great American Drama\u201d is the saga of David Quizano, a Russian man whose entire family was murdered in an anti-Jewish pogrom. He comes to the U.S., falls in love with a Russian Christian immigrant only to find out that her father was the Russian officer responsible for his family\u2019s death.<\/p>\n
The play tells the story of how Americans become Americans, according to Jos\u00e9-Antonio Orosco, the author of a book, \u201cToppling the Melting Pot.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a story of transition from the Old World to the New World and giving up the Old World to become Americans,\u201d Orosco said.<\/p>\n
At the time, people understood the melting pot metaphor to be more about foreigners assimilating to American culture rather than Americans welcoming foreigners as they are, Orosco added.<\/p>\n
And it remained that way through the early part of the 20th Century, as the U.S. struggled to figure out how to cope with the mass migration from eastern and southern Europe \u2014 when Italians, Germans and Russians came in large numbers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was concern that somehow this particular group of immigrants from these regions would somehow change not just the demographics, but the culture and politics of the United States,\u201d Orosco said.<\/p>\n
Succeeding waves of new immigrants found themselves having to choose between holding on to their old culture or joining the new one.<\/p>\n
For example, in the 1920s, Norwegians in Minnesota talked about how sad it was that their children could no longer speak their language or know their culture.<\/p>\n
Cultural experts note that instead of metaphorically using fresh ingredients to cook up a spicy, multilayered stew \u2026 our melting pot has historically made foreign food taste a little bland.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s something Jennifer LeMesurier, a writing and rhetoric professor at Colgate University, found in a modern cookbook. It was marketed at Europeans trying to make non-European dishes.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt said, for this curry \u2014 if you want \u2014 you can add either one teaspoon of curry powder or mushroom and onion. But not both,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd that was all the seasoning for the entire stew \u2014 which sounds horrible.\u201d<\/p>\n
LeMesurier\u2019s research focuses on how people talk about food in relation to race in the U.S. And she\u2019s found that it provides a window into how we\u2019ve always struggled to figure out who is and is not allowed to be American.<\/p>\n
Oftentimes, food is used to discriminate against new groups.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe love spaghetti now, but when the Italians got here people were like, \u2018you\u2019re eating worms on a plate,\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
LeMesurier also points to the late 1800s when anti-Chinese rhetoric was rampant in California, with newspapers perpetuating racist tropes of people eating cats and dogs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat rumor is very, very old,\u201d she said. “But it\u2019s also familiar.”<\/p>\n
\u201cWe see this with President Trump\u2019s accusations against the Haitian Community in Springfield (Ohio) saying, \u2018They\u2019re eating the cats, they\u2019re eating the dogs,\u2019\u201d LeMesurier said.<\/p>\n
So, in some respects, we\u2019re having the exact same conversations we had in the 1800s \u2014 which is relatively normal.<\/p>\n
\u201cHistory is never linear, progress is never linear,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s one reason why Orosco doesn\u2019t want to give up on the melting pot idea. Just because we haven\u2019t figured out how to get it right in the last 250 years, doesn\u2019t mean we won\u2019t in the next 250 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way it\u2019s been defined is that if you want to come here you have to fit into the old,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd that promise of a new exciting future of diversity and inclusion and new experience is something that\u2019s been lost in the discussion of the melting pot.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The United States has historically patted itself on the back for being the world\u2019s melting pot \u2014 the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":574451,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-574450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=574450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/574451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=574450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=574450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=574450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}