Products of the "Melting-Pot"

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 226, 24 September 1938, Page 17 (Supplement)

Products of the "Melting-Pot"

United States took millions A of immigrants last century; it became, in the famous phrase, the great Melting-Pot. Heads were shaken, and are still shaken, at the thought of that experiment, for it was predicted that the mixture of such a diversity of nationalities and races would create insuperable problems. It did create problems, some of which are not solved yet, but those problems have been exaggerated. Such is the impression received in reading Mr. William Seabrook's "Americans All" (ITarrop), in which a remarkably vivid picture is given of the various foreign groups.

To say that it is a study of foreign groups is to misrepresent the book. Mr. Seabrook s strength lies in his ability to become friendly with individuals, to learn from them all about themselves and to present them to the reader. What he found, in general, is that however foreign some of these foreigners are. their sons and daughters are growing up as Americans. When he was a boy an Italian was a dago or a wop. a £>reek was a Greek, and a Scandinavian, no matter where he came from, was a "dumb Swede:" but that attitude h<is changed. Foreign-born citizens and. more particularly, their children, are now more likely to be judged as individuals, as Americans. Jn short, the process of assimilation is far advanced.

Even more interesting, and important, than the evidence of assimilation Mr. Seabrook gives is the information of the contribution to American life which the immigrants, or their descendants, have made, and continue to make. In one group alone—the Germans —are such internationally famous names as Clark Gable, Babe Ruth-. General Pershing ("'whose family sjielled their name 'Pfoerschin' as "late as 1RG0"), Herbert Hoover, the Four Marx Brothers, and all the Rockefellers, Wanamakers, Woolworths, Waldorfs. Astors. and others that the world rightly thinks of now as American. But in addition to these there are, of course, millions of other people, living quiet lives, preserving some of the customs of their native European country and contributing something distinctive and valuable to American character. The book is a useful corrective of commonly-held prejudice against "foreigners."