05-28-2017, 10:34 PM
Emiliano Wrote:Theres not really anywhere in particular I am trying to go with this thread, other than to get a sense of what immigrant communities - which include the children of immigrants born in whatever country we are talking - in different places look like. And to what extent they are marginalized from the broader culture, or feel or are perceived as though they are. So whatever struck you enough to respond to is enough for me.
The melting pot vs the salad bowl is a very interesting debate to me. I view the melting pot not as many cultures being blended into one - but rather as many being blended into the dominant one. I know I have a biased perspective - which is why I want the opinions of others - but i view it in many ways as a loss. Where as I see the salad bowl as a gain - many different combining to create something new. I definitely view NYC as a salad bowl, I just had korean tex/mex burritos for dinner for fucks sake, but my limited experience outside of the city, and from what I've seen from the media, the news, entertainment, and experiences of friends - the rest of America, with a few notable exceptions, in general is more of a melting pot.
I mean a whole other layer on top of this for me would be gentrification, which in many ways is just coded language for white people returning to the cities, and how that is coming into a lot of conflict with the immigrant and ethnic enclaves of NYC. So where as some places in this country might worry that immigrants are coming in and changing their culture, in a lot of communities here, people worry about rich white kids coming in and changing their culture. But i think that might be a little too regionally focused to ask people outside of gentrifying cities to talk about. And i guess its also getting off topic - but I cant help my mind from drawing some connections.
In your experience, have you seen any successful fusions of the two? -The melting pot and the salad bowl. Would you be able to give examples of where you see that working or what that might look like?
What you said about the fusion to me is a combination of melting pot and salad bowl. Silly as it sounds, interfaith households that put the star of David on top of a Christmas tree would be another example I can think of. Color runs are also a little bit of that, though more of a salad bowl as the Indian culture has a yearly festival where they throw color at each other.
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