Is the U.S. a melting pot of cultures like we are taught in elementary school?
Ans: The U.S. used to be a melting pot, but today it is more like a salad. The melting pot model best describes an assimilationist society in which minority groups are incorporated into the dominant culture to the point where they no longer exists as separate cultural units. All of the minority groups are blended into the dominant “flavor” of the melting pot, which represents the dominant culture. Is this what we see in the U.S. today? While minority groups in the U.S. have to adopt some of the cultural standards of the U.S., they are encouraged to maintain their own traditional beliefs, values, customs, language, and history. Multicultural societies socialize people into both the dominant national culture and an ethnic culture. As a result, a salad best represents multicultural societies like the U.S. because in a salad, each ingredient remains distinct, although they are all in the same bowl covered with the same dressing. In this model, the different ingredients represent different
