melting pot

The image of the "melting pot" has been used to describe the process through which the various ethnic, cultural , and religious groups that have come to the United States have mutually transformed one another, thereby creating one American people. At its most static, the melting pot has meant the melting away of the customs and ways of the "old country" to conform with the new. At its most dynamic, however, it is an image of the process of change that both immigrants and native-born Americans undergo as they encounter one another on American soil. Although the term has caught the imagination of Americans for decades, it has also generated a significant cirtique from those who argue that even the more dynamic interpretation of the image sacrifies differences to uniformity.