On Being a Real American: Assimilation or Amalgamation?

Assimilation is the word used to describe what it takes for an immigrant to become a “real American.”  I don’t know if it’s ever been clearly defined, but I know what it’s intended to mean.  Immigrants are expected to leave traditional dress and social customs behind, adopt American ways of dress and social behavior.  English is to become one’s first language as quickly and with as little residual foreign accent as possible.  Ethnic heritage is welcomed when it’s expressed as as a nostalgic memory of the old country, honored but left behind. Annual celebrations in ethnic costume are OK but that’s it.  Old country recipes are to be adjusted to fit the tastes of real Americans so they can be added to the American menu.

he model for what assimilation looks like has been the self identified white middle class in each of its manifestations over the decades.  In other words, to be a real American was to be as white and middle class as possible.  I believe it was well intended.  After all the mythical white middle class had defined America in its own image from the first colonies until today.  America was to be a melting pot. Most were welcomed, some with deep suspicion, but it was expected that within a few generations immigrants would become essentially indistinguishable from real Americans in general. Immigrants from Europe, given a few generations, made it happen so it seemed to work.
There were exceptions.  Formerly enslaved blacks where expected to become as white as possible in behavior but they were obviously not white, so white behavior could never be more than a thin facade.  Jews could look white and act white, but they had strange customs, a second language dear to them, and were never going to become Christian, or at least agnostic.  One could like but not trust them and it was best if they were not allowed to live in real American neighborhoods.  Mexicans (meaning all  Hispanics) never quit being Mexican and what could you do about it?  American Indians were forced into treaties and schools designed to make assimilation their only path to a full free life, but under living conditions preventing it. Efforts were made to strip them of cultural and religious heritage but it never worked.  American Indians didn’t even get citizenship until a hundred years ago.  Western states were harshly cruel to Asians.

American’s dominant white culture and its ability to dictate what it is to be a real American is no longer acceptable.  The moment is nearly here when no color of skin or historic place of ethic origin will be in the majority.  Peoples of different races and cultures are less willing to give up everything to become as white as possible.  Assimilation has also bred decades of resentment over white arrogant condescension – something white America was blind to.   It’s time to move into amalgamation.  
Amalgamation combines a variety of ingredients to become a workable whole, without each ingredient giving up it’s own identity.  Any cook can explain how that works. Ingredients combine to complement each other in ways that produce a new taste and look. Complementary combination changes each ingredient yet doesn’t erase its individual characteristics.   People are not recipe ingredients, but I think the analogy makes its point.

Amalgamation cannot eliminate tensions and differences between groups but it can create conditions under which complementary cooperation will produce a stable equilibrium of unity to guide the nation forward.  Who gets to decide how amalgamation is to work successfully and become the new definition of what it is to be a real American?  It’s going to have to be a bit organic with leaders emerging from every part of society to work cooperatively as public representatives of the new way. It can’t be imposed from above.  It has to emerge from grass roots thought and opinion leaders.To use another analogy, think of it as like a NATO, ASEAN, or the European Union.  None is a perfect example but you get the idea. 

Who will be the losers?  The most obvious are whites resentful of giving up their historical place of privilege.  Even those on the bottom rung had at least some privilege denied to all others or they thought they did.  Losers will also include power and position greedy members of non-white groups who know well that amalgamation will corrode the very conditions giving them room to rule others.  Hard core leftists are never happy and amalgamation will make them more so because it will deny them the conditions they so love to rail against. Will it produce an American paradise? No!  In words reflective of Jon Meacham, humanity’s ability to engage in manifest  sins and wickedness knows no bounds. But perhaps we will be better able to corral the tendency and work harder for the common good to preserve our treasured freedoms.