British Freedom of Speech withered, dying

[Berkut]

I agree with Berkut on this - the idea that anyone could become American no matter where they're from was pretty damn progressive (but probably also very necessary)

Well yeah - it was a damn big country, and Manifest Destiny could not wait for normal population growth to fill it up!

[crazy canuck]

I am not at all surprised that you would take a metaphor, re-define it to mean something nobody else agrees that it means, then proudly inform us all that it is a "myth" like you've been talking to the burning bush and our enlightening all us ignorant savages.

Did you read the quotes I posted.  Its not me the defines it as a nation building myth it is your historical forefathers.... I am glad that I am shining a light into the depths of your ignorance.  Happy to help.

[Berkut]

I am not at all surprised that you would take a metaphor, re-define it to mean something nobody else agrees that it means, then proudly inform us all that it is a "myth" like you've been talking to the burning bush and our enlightening all us ignorant savages.

Did you read the quotes I posted.  Its not me the defines it as a nation building myth it is your historical forefathers.... I am glad that I am shining a light into the depths of your ignorance.  Happy to help.

Is there some special context I have to read them that would somehow reveal them claiming to be myths? Because neither of the quotes you posted said anything about them being myths, or defined them as myths, nation building or otherwise.

Or is this another context issue, where you make things up and then pretend like you said something else entirely, which would make sense if only we knew the elusive "context"?

[Valmy]

The melting pot term has now been replaced. The new term is a salad bowl or mixed salad or something to the like.

I know but they both have the image of different things being blended together to make something new.

[garbon]

I know but they both have the image of different things being blended together to make something new.

I don't know what kind of salads you eat.

In my salads, every element is distinct and yet works together.  That's a bit different from something like fudge where all those individual ingredients are melted into something entirely unrecognizable from what they were before.

There really is a difference between the two, which is why the salad metaphor came about.

[dps]

I am not at all surprised that you would take a metaphor, re-define it to mean something nobody else agrees that it means, then proudly inform us all that it is a "myth" like you've been talking to the burning bush and our enlightening all us ignorant savages.

Did you read the quotes I posted.  Its not me the defines it as a nation building myth it is your historical forefathers.... I am glad that I am shining a light into the depths of your ignorance.  Happy to help.

Is there some special context I have to read them that would somehow reveal them claiming to be myths? Because neither of the quotes you posted said anything about them being myths, or defined them as myths, nation building or otherwise.

Or is this another context issue, where you make things up and then pretend like you said something else entirely, which would make sense if only we knew the elusive "context"?

Also, he was quoting wiki articles, and I'm pretty sure that our forefathers didn't spend much time posting on wikipedia.     

[crazy canuck]

Is there some special context I have to read them that would somehow reveal them claiming to be myths? Because neither of the quotes you posted said anything about them being myths, or defined them as myths, nation building or otherwise.

Or is this another context issue, where you make things up and then pretend like you said something else entirely, which would make sense if only we knew the elusive "context"?

The whole concept of Europeans being transformed into Americans through the crucible of the melting pot once they land at Ellis Island.

[crazy canuck]

Also, he was quoting wiki articles, and I'm pretty sure that our forefathers didn't spend much time posting on wikipedia.     

Only pretty sure.

[Ed Anger]

Is there some special context I have to read them that would somehow reveal them claiming to be myths? Because neither of the quotes you posted said anything about them being myths, or defined them as myths, nation building or otherwise.

Or is this another context issue, where you make things up and then pretend like you said something else entirely, which would make sense if only we knew the elusive "context"?

The whole concept of Europeans being transformed into Americans through the crucible of the melting pot once they land at Ellis Island.

That happens to their kids and grandkids.

[crazy canuck]

That happens to their kids and grandkids.

Probably, but if you read the rhetoric that created the term "melting pot" it happened to those who landed.  Which is the basis of why I say it was a compelling nation building myth.

For example:

In Henry Ford's Ford English School (established in 1914), the graduation ceremony for immigrant employees involved symbolically stepping off an immigrant ship and passing through the melting pot, entering at one end in costumes designating their nationality and emerging at the other end in identical suits and waving American flags

[crazy canuck]

I don't know what kind of salads you eat.

In my salads, every element is distinct and yet works together.  That's a bit different from something like fudge where all those individual ingredients are melted into something entirely unrecognizable from what they were before.

There really is a difference between the two, which is why the salad metaphor came about.

The Wiki summary would agree.

Since the 1960s, most of the research in Sociology and History has disregarded the melting pot theory for describing inter ethnic relations in the United States and other countries[9][10][11]. The theory of multiculturalism offers alternative analogies for ethnic interaction including salad bowl theory, or, as it is known in Canada, the cultural mosaic.

[Ed Anger]

That happens to their kids and grandkids.

Probably, but if you read the rhetoric that created the term "melting pot" it happened to those who landed.  Which is the basis of why I say it was a compelling nation building myth.

For example:

In Henry Ford's Ford English School (established in 1914), the graduation ceremony for immigrant employees involved symbolically stepping off an immigrant ship and passing through the melting pot, entering at one end in costumes designating their nationality and emerging at the other end in identical suits and waving American flags

Gotta let the new helots know who is in charge.

[Valmy]

The Wiki summary would agree.

Well as Wiki notes you never hear the term salad bowl outside of sociological circles.

[crazy canuck]

The Wiki summary would agree.

Well as Wiki notes you never hear the term salad bowl outside of sociological circles.

that makes sense since that is primarily where the academic discussion would take place.

[Valmy]

That happens to their kids and grandkids.

Probably, but if you read the rhetoric that created the term "melting pot" it happened to those who landed.  Which is the basis of why I say it was a compelling nation building myth.

For example:

In Henry Ford's Ford English School (established in 1914), the graduation ceremony for immigrant employees involved symbolically stepping off an immigrant ship and passing through the melting pot, entering at one end in costumes designating their nationality and emerging at the other end in identical suits and waving American flags

Ford was pretty infamous for that sorta thing.  However at the time there were different language newspapers, towns, political organizations, and on and on and on in the immigrants languages.  In fact one of the favorite tricks of management was to set the different ethnic groups against each other and break up attempts to unionize by exploiting ethnic and racial tensions.  Different nationalistic groups forwarded their European agendas over here, famously the Czechs and Slovaks forged their plan for a Czechoslovak state over here.  The Germans were particularly stubborn and it was not until anti-German sentiment really set in during WWI and WWII that alot of them finally started to learn English...in Texas there were German-only speaking towns that existed for almost 100 years from 1849 to the 1940s.

Man let me tell you Nativists really fretted about all that going on (see Henry Ford) but cooler heads fought against the reactionaries assuring them there was no reason to, for example, outlaw German newspapers and that they would go away on their own.  They did.

I really don't see how that is different at all from the situation now with the Latinos with the possible exception that they have much easier contact with their home countries now thanks to modern technology.