“Melting Pot” or “Vegetable Soup”?

In his play The Melting-Pot (1908), writer Israel Zangwill created what would become the dominant metaphor of immigrant assimilation. Zangwill portrayed people from different backgrounds entering American society, undergoing a process of assimilation, and becoming citizens virtually indistinguishable from their native-born counterparts. When the play premiered at the Columbia Theater in Washington, D.C., President Theodore Roosevelt, to whom the play was dedicated, was in the audience and reportedly cheered the production. The play went on to become a hit on Broadway the following year.

The reality of immigrant assimilation was more complicated than Zangwill’s “melting pot” metaphor suggested (Document 18.5). There is some truth in Zangwill’s metaphor: In the days before radio and television, immigrants absorbed new values, language, style of dress, taste in foods, and sense of humor from schools, newspapers, magazines, and silent movies. However, many of them also valued aspects of their native cultural and social heritages and took pains to preserve cherished traditions and beliefs, as the cartoon, “Mortar of Assimilation” suggests (Document 18.6). Although immigrants saw the necessity of some degree of assimilation, many were unwilling to become “fully American” if that meant completely abandoning their previous cultural identities. Assimilation also varied by generation, with the children of immigrants becoming more Americanized than their parents (Document 18.7).

While many native-born Americans saw assimilation as a requirement of true citizenship, others rejected the very possibility of assimilation, arguing that immigrants were inherently inferior and could not be absorbed into American society. Critics like Alfred Schultz (Document 18.8) believed that cultural differences would lead to the ruin of America. Only a few like Randolph Bourne took the position of what today we call multiculturalism (Document 18.9). The following documents illustrate the debate at the turn of the twentieth century about immigrant assimilation from both supporters and opponents of assimilation.