Beyond The Melting Pot

From its earliest days under English rule, New York City had an unusually diverse ethnic makeup, with substantial numbers of Dutch, English, Scottish, Irish, French, German, and Jewish immigrants, as well as a large African-American population. Joyce Goodfriend paints a vivid portrait of this society, exploring the meaning of ethnicity in early America and showing how colonial settlers of varying backgrounds worked out a basis for coexistence. She argues that, contrary to the prevalent notion of rapid Anglicization, ethnicity proved an enduring force in this small urban society well into the eighteenth century.

Long before Covid-19 and the death of George Floyd rocked America, Reihan Salam predicted our current unrest--and provided a blueprint for reuniting the country. "Tthe years to come may see a new populist revolt, driven by the resentments of working-class Americans of color.” For too long, liberals have suggested that only cruel, racist, or nativist bigots would want to restrict immigration. Anyone motivated by compassion and egalitarianism would choose open, or nearly-open, borders—or so the argument goes. Now, Reihan Salam, the son of Bangladeshi immigrants, turns this argument on its head. In this deeply researched but also deeply personal book, Salam shows why uncontrolled immigration is bad for everyone, including people like his family. Our current system has intensified the isolation of our native poor, and risks ghettoizing the children of poor immigrants. It ignores the challenges posed by the declining demand for less-skilled labor, even as it exacerbates ethnic inequality and deepens our political divides. If we continue on our current course, in which immigration policy serves wealthy insiders who profit from cheap labor, and cosmopolitan extremists attack the legitimacy of borders, the rise of a new ethnic underclass is inevitable. Even more so than now, class politics will be ethnic politics, and national unity will be impossible. Salam offers a solution, if we have the courage to break with the past and craft an immigration policy that serves our long-term national interests. Rejecting both militant multiculturalism and white identity politics, he argues that limiting total immigration and favoring skilled immigrants will combat rising inequality, balance diversity with assimilation, and foster a new nationalism that puts the interests of all Americans—native-born and foreign-born—first.

The melting pot is no more. Where not very long ago we sought assimilation, we now pursue multiculturalism. Nowhere has this transformation been more evident than in the public schools, where a traditional Eurocentric curriculum has yielded to diversity--and, often, to confrontation and confusion. In a book that brings clarity and reason to this highly charged issue, Nathan Glazer explores these sweeping changes. He offers an incisive account of why we all--advocates and skeptics alike--have become multiculturalists, and what this means for national unity, civil society, and the education of our youth. Focusing particularly on the impact in public schools, Glazer dissects the four issues uppermost in the minds of people on both sides of the multicultural fence: Whose "truth" do we recognize in the curriculum? Will an emphasis on ethnic roots undermine or strengthen our national unity in the face of international disorder? Will attention to social injustice, past and present, increase or decrease civil disharmony and strife? Does a multicultural curriculum enhance learning, by engaging students' interest and by raising students' self-esteem, or does it teach irrelevance at best and fantasy at worst? Glazer argues cogently that multiculturalism arose from the failure of mainstream society to assimilate African Americans; anger and frustration at their continuing separation gave black Americans the impetus for rejecting traditions that excluded them. But, willingly or not, "we are all multiculturalists now," Glazer asserts, and his book gives us the clearest picture yet of what there is to know, to fear, and to ask of ourselves in this new identity.

Nothing happening in America today will do more to affect our children's future than the wave of new immigrants flooding into the country, mostly from the developing world. Already, one in ten Americans is foreign-born, and if one counts their children, one-fifth of the population can be considered immigrants. Will these newcomers make it in the U.S? Or will today's realities -- from identity politics to cheap and easy international air travel -- mean that the age-old American tradition of absorption and assimilation no longer applies? Reinventing the Melting Pot is a conversation among two dozen of the thinkers who have looked longest and hardest at the issue of how immigrants assimilate: scholars, journalists, and fiction writers, on both the left and the right. The contributors consider virtually every aspect of the issue and conclude that, of course, assimilation can and must work again -- but for that to happen, we must find new ways to think and talk about it. Contributors to Reinventing the Melting Pot include Michael Barone, Stanley Crouch, Herbert Gans, Nathan Glazer, Michael Lind, Orlando Patterson, Gregory Rodriguez, and Stephan Thernstrom.

Create a perfect night out by gathering friends and family around a pot of warm melted cheese, chocolate or a cooking style eager to add flavor to your favorite dipper. The Melting Pot dares you to Dip Into Something Different with this collection of recipes from our fondue to yours.

The scope of this volume of Alvin Schiff's writings reveals the breadth of his interest and impact on many facets of Jewish education. This collection is a window onto the leadership he has provided for jewish education in North America.

Argues that Americans have more in common with each other than with their ethnic ancestors.