“No reverberatory effect of the great war has caused American public opinion more solicitude than the failure of the ‘melting- pot.’”
The purpose of the melting pot was to allow immigrants to assimilate into the American culture. Immigrants were being forced to integrate into the american culture. They run away from political distress, religious persecutions, unemployment, famine, and many other issues within their native country. Immigrants come from all over the world to America to be free and receive more opportunities for jobs and an education, not knowing that they are coming to be integrated into a system that is completely western. These new immigrants were not coming to fully assimilate and strengthen American nationalism, but instead holding on to their traditional beliefs, which was becoming a conflicting matter with traditional American beliefs. Immigrants in America are being coerced into the western culture indirectly because they cannot get by speaking their native tongue (getting a job or even going to school). They must inhabit the ways of the western culture and adopt its customs in order to be considered “American”. “Failure of the melting pot” refers to the anglo saxons preventing America from reaching its diversity of various cultures. Americans were trying to integrate the cultures of immigrants into their own disregarding the fact that not everyone wanted to be assimilated. Hence the relation between “Americanization and Anglosaxination”.
The reason I chose this quote was to shed light on the notion that American beliefs and values, that are being held dear by its people (anglo saxons), are becoming major factors in changing nationalism. Randolph was right about America failing to be a melting pot because those who come here and go to school or get a job become inevitably influenced by the western culture.
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