The United States has historically patted itself on the back for being the world’s melting pot — the one country where people from all over the world can live together in harmony.
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.
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.
“Melting Pot: The Great American Drama” 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’s death.
The play tells the story of how Americans become Americans, according to José-Antonio Orosco, the author of a book, “Toppling the Melting Pot.”
“It’s a story of transition from the Old World to the New World and giving up the Old World to become Americans,” Orosco said.
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.
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 — when Italians, Germans and Russians came in large numbers.
“There 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,” Orosco said.
Succeeding waves of new immigrants found themselves having to choose between holding on to their old culture or joining the new one.
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.
Cultural experts note that instead of metaphorically using fresh ingredients to cook up a spicy, multilayered stew … our melting pot has historically made foreign food taste a little bland.
That’s 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.
“It said, for this curry — if you want — you can add either one teaspoon of curry powder or mushroom and onion. But not both,” she said. “And that was all the seasoning for the entire stew — which sounds horrible.”
LeMesurier’s research focuses on how people talk about food in relation to race in the U.S. And she’s found that it provides a window into how we’ve always struggled to figure out who is and is not allowed to be American.
Oftentimes, food is used to discriminate against new groups.
“We love spaghetti now, but when the Italians got here people were like, ‘you’re eating worms on a plate,’” she said.
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.
“That rumor is very, very old,” she said. "But it’s also familiar."
“We see this with President Trump’s accusations against the Haitian Community in Springfield (Ohio) saying, ‘They’re eating the cats, they’re eating the dogs,’” LeMesurier said.
So, in some respects, we’re having the exact same conversations we had in the 1800s — which is relatively normal.
“History is never linear, progress is never linear,” she said.
That’s one reason why Orosco doesn’t want to give up on the melting pot idea. Just because we haven’t figured out how to get it right in the last 250 years, doesn’t mean we won’t in the next 250 years.
“The way it’s been defined is that if you want to come here you have to fit into the old,” he said. “And that promise of a new exciting future of diversity and inclusion and new experience is something that’s been lost in the discussion of the melting pot.”
