Describing the diversity of human differences in the United States, it is impossible to omit the factor of immigration which plays a great role in the social development of the country. Comparing the number of people who obtained legal permanent resident status in 1950 and 2011, the difference is great, 205,717 in 1951 and 1,062,040 in 2011 (2011 year book of Immigration statistics: Office of immigration statistics, 2012). During 60 years much has changed. Many people go to America searching for better life. Sometimes it seems that the USA has much less Native Americans if compared to immigrants. The USA was something like the oasis where better life was promised, therefore people went there in the future and now many people all over the world immigrate to the USA to live better and to assist their relatives who stayed at home. Looking at the USA and its social diversity, many scholars refer to numerous metaphors in describing current situation in relation to the immigration and diversity. Calling the USA as a mosaic, a melting pot, a salad bowl or a kaleidoscope, different scholars want to express their vision of the situation in the USA.
Vincent and Parrillo (2010) in their book Strangers to These Shores: Race and Ethnic Relations in the United States called US diversity mosaic. Meaning a variety of ethic and cultural groups in the USA, the author also wanted to stress on the diversity and the marriage peculiarities. People from different nations and ethnical groups inhabit modern America. Living in the same environment, people get married and as a result their ethnicity becomes doubtful. Modern society is like a mosaic where nationalities are mixed, cultures and traditional peculiarities are tangled as well. Therefore, it is impossible to speak about American culture as about something national. It is difficult to distinguish pure American culture within the variety of other cultures. Different races, ethnicity and religious peculiarities are mixed in the scope of American population. Such diversity brings many conflicts on the ground of national belonging
Speaking about American diversity as about a melting pot, Jacoby (2004) means that arriving to the USA people loose their cultural characteristic and at the same time they share those of the American diversity. It is like ice melting in juice. Those who live in the USA carry some specifics of the cultural traditions of the newcomers, and those who come to live in the USA do not posses their cultural peculiarities after several years of living there. Cultural traditions of the newcomers as if melt in the diversity of the country and at the same time they acquire some specific features from the US population. Therefore, speaking about melting pot as about multiculturalism and its peculiarities in the USA, it should be stated that it is impossible to omit the change and avoid melting like millions of other immigrants.
Some scholars consider US diversity as a salad bowl which states that immigrants retain their cultural identity in the new country they live into. Flora Davis (1999) was one of the first scholars who called American diversity a salad bowl. Moreover, she intended to presuppose that melting pot is not what the USA meant and the changes created a new structure of American society. Conducting a research devoted to society and diversity, Flora Davis (1999) noticed that some people who came to the USA managed to retain their national peculiarities and conserve their traditions and culture. This tendency was used by different people, therefore, she came to the conclusion that the time of melting pot passed by. People began to remember their cultural belonging and tried to retain them on the new territory.
Calling American society a kaleidoscope, Lawrence H. Fuchs (1990) wanted to stress the tendency when both the immigrants and society adapt and change. Being similar to melting pot, this vision of the issue is something different as in comparison with melting pot where the American mixed culture is predominant, kaleidoscope means that all the participants of interchange of cultural peculiarities get similar issues. It is essential to stress on such peculiarities of kaleidoscope as sharing and interchange. In this case, both the representatives of the US cultural diversity and those who brought their personal vision of culture to a new place share their vision of culture and get new features. Therefore, the Chinese ethnicity has something different traditions living in the US than their family in China even in case both representatives of the same culture wanted to retain their traditions. Kaleidoscope presupposes change and it is impossible to omit it. The supporters of this vision are sure that it is impossible to live in another country without cultural assimilation.
Therefore, there are four main visions of American diversity expressed via such metaphors as mosaic diversity, melting pot, salad bowl, and kaleidoscope. Each of these metaphors is correct and may be applied to the particular situations as these phrases and their meaning perfectly describe current estate of affairs in the USA.
Reference List
2011 year book of Immigration statistics: Office of immigration statistics. (2012, September). Homeland Security. Web.
Davis, F. (1999). Moving the Mountain: The Women’s Movement in America since 1960. Champaign: University of Illinois Press.
Fuchs, L. H. (1990). The American Kaleidoscope: Race, Ethnicity, and the Civic Culture. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press.
Jacoby, T. (2004). Reinventing the Melting Pot: The New Immigrants And What It Means To Be American. London: Basic Books.
Vincent, D., & Parrillo, N. (2010). Strangers to These Shores: Race and Ethnic Relations in the United States. New York: Allyn & Bacon.