Introduction
It is extremely likely that one has heard at least once in their life that the United States is one big melting pot. As a person gets older, they start to debate whether America is actually a melting pot – or if it is a salad bowl. In order to determine which term is more representative of the country, it is necessary to delve into these concepts first. Only then is it possible to look into America’s different time periods and come to particular conclusions? For once, it is interesting to find out that the aftermath of World War I, in one way or another, was characterized by both these occurrences.
Main body
The first rise of the melting pot theory to prominence is dated more than two hundred years. J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur – a French immigrant – in 1782, described America’s demographic homogeneity as including “individuals of all nations…[who] melted into a new race of men” (Berray, 2019, p. 142). The desire to assimilate is described by Berray (2019) as a minority group’s adaptation to the lifestyle of the dominant group – the group whose cultural, political, and economic norms are the default. Such adaptation minimizes differences between minorities who hope to integrate into mainstream societies and these societies’ representatives.
When it comes to the salad bowl theory, its concept arose much later. According to Berray (2019), it happened in the 1960s, and its essence is in retaining people’s unique identities and recognizing differences that are inevitable in a multicultural society. In contrast to the melting pot theory, in which the dominant group’s influence prevails, either way, the salad bowl maintains the identity of minorities and allows them to exist as they are alongside dominant cultures. This obviates the need for the creation of homogeneous identities as per the melting pot, especially considering that such identities are not equally proportionated in terms of their corresponding constituents.
In order to determine which theory described the state of America post-World War I better, it is reasonable to turn to the events and policies occurring in the country at the time. As stated by Bitesize, during World War I, Americans were worried about the number of immigrants who came to the United States seeking escape from war and the consequent economic depression. Their primary concern was foreign culture and religion threatening their way of life – that is, the White Anglo-Saxon Protestants’ way of life (Bitesize, n.d.). Americans’ fears were not unfounded: since people immigrated due to necessity, not desire, they did not have any ground to attempt to assimilate. Indeed, immigrants are reported to have retained their customs and spoken their languages, alongside not intending to alter their religious beliefs. Additionally, there were a lot of divisions due to people taking different sides concerning war. Consequently, one may come to the conclusion that this state of affairs resembled a salad bowl significantly more than a melting pot.
In that regard, it is interesting that the measures implemented by the American government due to that occasion can be called the measures to turn that salad bowl into a melting pot. According to Gloor n.d., during the war and subsequent years, policies of coercive education and employment were adopted in order to force immigrants to assimilate. The purpose of this process was to produce citizens conforming not only to the country’s democratic ideals but even to local habits, the American version of English, and major political and social ideologies. Such forceful Americanization can be labeled as a case of the melting pot policy, though carefully, since such processes are supposed to occur naturally.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the United States’ immigration situation after World War I is an example of a salad bowl theory in action. People who came to America did that amid safety concerns, and their lack of desire to assimilate is easily understandable. Measures employed by the government in order to make people adapt to the American way of life are an additional confirmation that initially, the immigrants’ approach resembled a salad bowl more than anything else.
References
Berray, M. (2019). A critical literary review of the Melting Pot and Salad Bowl Assimilation and integration theories. [PDF file]. Journal of Ethnic and Cultural Studies, 6(1), 142-151. Web.
Bitesize. (n.d.). The Open Door policy and immigration to 1928. BBC. Web.
Gloor, L.B. (n.d.). From the Melting Pot to the Tossed Salad metaphor: Why coercive assimilation lacks the flavors Americans crave. [PDF file]. University of Hawaii at Hilo. Web.