Document 18.5 Israel Zangwill, The Melting-Pot, 1908

Document 18.5

Israel Zangwill | The Melting-Pot, 1908

The Melting-Pot explores the experiences of David Quixano, a Jewish immigrant and musician, as he writes a symphony that puts to music the racial and ethnic harmony created by the assimilation of immigrant groups in America at the turn of the twentieth century. In the following scene, David explains the process of assimilation to his love interest, Vera, and his uncle Mendel.

VERA So your music finds inspiration in America?

DAVID Yes—in the seething of the Crucible.

VERA The Crucible? I don’t understand!

DAVID Not understand! You, the Spirit of the Settlement! Not understand that America is God’s Crucible, the great Melting-Pot where all the races of Europe are melting and re-forming! Here you stand, good folk, think I, when I see them at Ellis Island, here you stand in your fifty groups, with your fifty languages and histories, and your fifty blood hatreds and rivalries. But you won’t be long like that, brothers, for these are the fires of God you’ve come to—these are the fires of God. A fig for your feuds and vendettas! Germans and Frenchmen, Irishmen and Englishmen, Jews and Russians—into the Crucible with you all! God is making the American.

MENDEL I should have thought the American was made already—eighty millions of him.

DAVID Eighty millions! Eighty millions! Over a continent! Why, that cockleshell of a Britain has forty millions! No, uncle, the real American has not yet arrived. He is only in the Crucible, I tell you—he will be the fusion of all races, the coming superman. Ah, what a glorious Finale for my symphony—if I can only write it.

Source: Israel Zangwill, The Melting-Pot: Drama in Four Acts (New York: Macmillan, 1909), 36–38.