The Melting Pot

The United States is often referred to as a melting pot. This metaphor intends to portray the shift from a heterogenous society to a more homogenized one, specifically in terms of race and ethnicity. The American ethos is both apple pie and sesame chicken, Spanish and English, Islam and Christianity. The influx of immigrants to this nation creates a manifold cultural identity, at least that is how we praise ourselves. The truth is that for centuries American identity is defined in terms of an acceptance and perpetuation of white cultural norms, particularly anglo-saxon ones, reflecting our status as a former British colony. The melting pot is not creating a unique multi-layered ethnic identity but a furnace of white ideology; the impurities rise to the surface to be discarded, leaving behind a pure white culture. The customs and ways of life from other cultures are viewed as exotic, deviant, interesting, strange, but never American (no matter how long one's ancestors have been here). The aspects of one's native culture will eventually be discarded, or relegated to secret spaces hidden from the public, to fully participate in the rights and privileges of an American. We see generation after generation of immigrant adopt more white American customs and less of their family heritage. I don't even know my family history because my native customs were whipped out of my people and discarded. Their strength and humanity discarded by slave owners in favor of a more palatable version,  niggers...not men, women, mothers, brothers. Niggers...who knew their place in this society. My racial identity was both stripped and given by the melting pot of America. I feel the heat of the crucible every day, the pressure to conform, but this melting pot only serves to harden my resolve.