Melting pot

A crucible is a crucible in which substances (mostly metals ) were mixed and melted.

The metaphor of the "melting pot " was first used by Jean de Crèvecoeur in his 1782 essay erschienenem Letters from an American Farmer. A common expression but it was only by the success of the play The Melting Pot, the English writer Israel Zangwill, which in 1908 in Washington, DC was premiered.

Concept in the social sciences

In sociology and political science, the term " melting pot " ( engl. melting pot ) the assimilation and integration of immigrants into the culture of a country. The different cultures and values ​​are to be mixed to a common integrated national culture. In addition to " melting pot " but are always so-called " salad bowls " to be found, in which not all cultures are merged, but immigrant groups each maintain their own well-defined cultures for themselves. This can - as practiced in Canada as a " multicultural mosaic " - the explicit aim or based on insufficient detail implementation of a melting pot policy.

After the melting pot approach can be through assimilation and integration of a homogeneous national culture forms that despite the short roots has a strong sense of community; However, this approach is not free of problems: Immigrants mostly experienced considerable social pressure to conform, if they continue to practice their culture of origin in the country of immigration, and it is clearly distinguished from the dominant country of immigration. The melting pot approach has also its limits when society groups do not want to be allowed to adjust to the dominant culture.

In Germany especially, the city transport links easily accessible Cologne is seen as an example of a melting pot for thousands of years. In the early days, the city of Berlin enlarged to many times; in its history was the later imperial city temporarily to large parts of French, Czech and Austrian - mostly Protestant Huguenot - immigrants. The state of Prussia is also seen as a multilingual melting pot that only through formal tolerance and economic progress, different religions ( Catholicism in Silesia, Lutheran population in the Altprovinzen and Reformed as the ruling Hohenzollern ), different languages ​​( German, Polish, French, German, Sorbian ) as well as different ethnic groups ( Slavic ancestors, Germanic ancestors, Swiss ancestors in Neuchâtel ) was able to connect to a polity.

The United States and Canada as a melting pot

A typical example of a "melting pot" integration strategy, the United States of America. As part of the immigration of people from all over the world with different religions and traditions, the process developed with the very first colonies of European countries and the clash of Europeans and Native Americans. Apart from the Europeans and Africans came to America as slaves and also brought with them their traditions and religions, however, were suppressed by their masters and only few were able to survive in secret. From the South also still came hispanophone groups from Cuba and Puerto Rico as well as many Mexicans who already inhabited before the later states from California to Texas. The expansion of trade relations of the United States came later added influences from Oceania and especially the later state of Hawaii. From Asia, primarily China, the two major railway companies, who sought picked to build the first route through the Rocky Mountains, many workers. However, this could live only in small measure their culture, because they received only a fraction of the wages and the working and living conditions in railroad were very hard. Together with the Irish who fled their country of hunger, were among others Italian, German, French, British, Spanish and Portuguese a broad mass of other influences on the religious, social and traditional structure of the United States.

Today, people come from all over the world equally in the United States, principally there to take a vacation or to trade. The United States have been " immigrant state" born and are still a melting pot or " melting pot" of any State mentioned, but whose national idea becomes due to the pervasive mass media such as television or Internet increasingly important.

Another integration strategy is the idea of ​​the Canadian multicultural mosaic. This multiculturalism into account the different cultural backgrounds of the population and provides the specific cultural practices and languages.