Israel Zangwill's Melting Pot

1138 Words3 Pages

The United States of America is a very racially and ethnically diverse state. People of various nationalities, races and origins have always seen the USA as the paradise-land and tried to settle there throughout the history. Interestingly enough, the USA has even been called ‘the melting pot’. This notion was first introduced by Israel Zangwill in his play Melting Pot in 1908. What it became to be associated with is the phenomenon of how thousands of people of different and distinct cultures and origins have come to the US, and have formed a kind of a new society with various self-sufficient features blending together in it. This metaphor also contributed to the creation of the idea of a united and single national identity of the US. However, …show more content…

In order to understand the exact essence of the minority questions in the United States, it would be of a great use to define the majority of this country first. White-Americans, with ancestors coming mainly from Europe, form the majority in the USA, composing around 70% of the whole population, as well as a majority in almost every region, according to the US Census Bureau (2012). Sometimes White-Americans are also being called WASPs, which used to stand for White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, however, having changed the meaning with time. Nowadays, this colloquial and rather unofficial term is mostly used by the representatives of minority groups in the US due to the common belief that White-Americans is the only most prosperous, high-status and influential group in business, economics, politics and social life in the USA. Undoubtedly, such views lead to the development of the dilemma, where US population is considered to be a very liberal and inclusive entity, while at the same time most minority groups still feel undermined and unequal in their rights. The examples of Indians and African-Americans can be seen as the most outstanding ones. Even though a lot of efforts have been made since the nineteenth – mid-twentieth century in order to give more opportunities to the minorities in the USA, some racial historically-created barriers might be very hard to

Open Document