America: Melting Pot or Salad Bowl?

For the longest time, people seem to be under the impression that America is now a melting pot. They say this, because of the number of immigrants that have made it into this country (my family included). I understand why they think this. Of course, when an immigrant comes over here, they don’t just erase their culture. They bring along with them their language, religions, food, and everything else that makes them who they are. As time goes on, there came more and more people from different backgrounds, who look different, speak differently, and dress different. It gave people the idea that now our country has a mixture of different races and ethnicity, making us a melting pot so to speak.

However, I disagree with this. I do not believe that our country is a melting pot, but rather a salad bowl. Yes, there are many different types of people living here, but we are not all mixed together as one big happy community. Our country is so incredibly divided. Even in towns where there are many different groups of people, they are still split apart. You always see that the run down inner city part of the community is where they put all of the minority groups like blacks and Hispanics, while the clean, rich communities are where the white people reside. This is not us “living together” this is us still separate, and not equal.

In order for a society to be considered a melting pot, in my opinion, everyone has to be welcoming and embracing one another’s cultural differences and backgrounds. This is not happening in America.. people hate each other for their differences, rather than coming together as one. People in America were never very welcoming of immigrants, and it is even more prevalent now. Our own president wants to build a wall that divides us from Mexico, in order to prevent more immigrants from coming in. This is not what being a melting pot looks like.

If we really want to consider ourselves to be a melting pot society, we need to embrace each others differences and welcome immigrants into our country, while understanding that the culture and backgrounds that they bring are what will make our country better. Until we can all agree on this, our country will remain a salad bowl instead.

 

 

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