One manifestation of the separatist movement in the United States is the objection to the traditional image of the American Melting Pot, in which people from all parts of the world fuse their customs to become Americans.
Play poster from 1916
The new, politically-correct image is that of the American Mosaic in which the separate ethnic and cultural ingredients remain separate, attached to one another by some sort of undefined cement that connects them, but prevents them from fusing.
I believe that the Melting Pot is the preferable concept.
In a mosaic, the only binder is the cement; weaken that and the whole crumbles, leaving separate bits with nothing in common except physical location; consider Bosnia, Rwanda, Pakistan.
In the melting pot, the disparate elements become an alloy. The African contribution joins with the Irish, the Chinese, the Jewish, the Mexican, the American Indian, etc., to become something new, something distinctly “American” as opposed to European or Indian, African, or Asian.
In the Melting Pot the original elements are not lost. They are transformed so that the alloy is the stuff of which all Americans are formed.
Like a member of the Starship Enterprise, the Melting Pot-American may choose to wear a dashiki or a sari or a serape during leisure hours. He can identify with his family’s origins and personal values without setting up an adversarial relationship to Americans who choose to identify with some other element in the national alloy.
The Melting Pot-American values ethnic difference without losing sight of the importance of the national interest and public good. Because all Americans share in the mix, all Americans, if they are sane and even nominally educated in the nation’s history, are able to understand multiple viewpoints and find ways to work with one another.
The Mosaic-American says
I’m different, you don’t understand me.
You can’t understand me.
I don’t want you to understand me.
I don’t want to talk like you.
Stay on your side of the grout and I’ll stay on mine.
I’ll teach my children what I want them to believe about history and I don’t want the public schools to contradict what I have taught them.
and don’t try to make them say the Pledge because they’re not “American,” they’re * * * (insert the ethnic, racial, or religious designation of your choice.)
History is lies.
You can’t trust books.
You can’t trust teachers.
You can’t trust anybody who doesn’t look, think, and talk like us.
The Melting Pot image says
We are all Americans with the same stake in the country.
Our ancestors shared certain experiences in the past and we share certain experiences in the present.
We are a mixture of all the races, religions, and cultures of the world which are themselves a mixture of all that is best and worst in human belief and practice.
We can choose to include the best of this world heritage in our national identity and refuse to preserve the evil.”
The image of the Mosaic seeks to deny the historical fact that as cultures collide they merge and fuse.
The image of the Melting Pot recognizes the historical truth that children are different from their parents because they occupy a different niche in historical time, and because their minds are exposed to different thoughts, ideas, and world conditions.
The Mosaic image promotes intolerance and is shored up by keeping children ignorant. The Melting Pot image promotes the idea of a national identity and stakes everything on educating children to think for themselves.
It is no accident that the popularity of the Mosaic image coincides with a decline in the quality of public education.
From the Mosaic point of view, the ungrammatical memoir of an uneducated criminal is equal in value to the works of George Orwell. Books for “literature” classes are not selected for a content of the best writing of the best writers, but for the uncritical inclusion of a politically-correct mix of writers according to race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, and economic status.
The concept of educating children in the genius of their native language so that they can not only appreciate it but use it to clarify and strengthen their own thinking, has been lost. A new generation of Americans is growing up ignorant of shades of meaning, standard pronunciation, grammatical construction, and the pleasures of reading.
Adamantly “mosaic” Americans who refuse to speak a standard form of English will find little advantage in their chosen dialect if the English they speak is incomprehensible to non-native speakers who have learned standard English.
The question of which image to adopt as a metaphor for the American experience is not trivial. The act of naturalization should be seen as a ritual that confers a new ethnicity and not just a new mailing address.
Becoming “an American” does not have to mean relinquishing one’s childhood customs, clothing, or religion. It should, however, entail a shift of national loyalties and the acceptance of specific civic responsibilties.
The American ethnicity should recognize national values not shared by some other countries. For example,
tolerance of diverse religious beliefs–as long as the citizens who hold them don’t try to impose them on the citizens who don’t.
equal protection under the law--not special rules according to wealth, celebrity, or gender
responsible capitalism–freedom to pursue wealth without license to grind the poor
Values and ideals are not the same as realities.
The realities of life in the United States are often in contradiction to the ideals stated in the Declaration of Independence and the the Pledge of Allegiance.
The disconnects that exist, however, should not be used as excuses to abandon the vision of a nation unlike any that has existed before: a nation in which people are truly free and equal, socially,
economically, and intellectually.
To achieve such ideals a people and its government must work together. Special interest groups with conflicting goals tend to lose sight of a national vision.
Melting Pot or Mosaic? It’s nothing less than the choice between a unified national purpose and an internecine battleground.