melting pot Quotes

“Of these older people many wear clothing reminiscent in some detail of home – an embroidered waistcoat or stomacher, or a gaily colored handkerchief, or a coat with large cuffs and fancy buttons. All these things are carefully avoided by the young, most of whom have learned to speak English and to affect the latest style of clothing. The girls wear ready-made dresses or shirt waists, and some of them look quite pretty. Some of the young men you would take to be Americans, of the type of clerks, but for the fact that they wear their hats in the room.”

“Sociologists call the process of the melting pot “social mobility.” One of America’s characteristics has always been the lack of a rigid class structure. It has traditionally been possible for people to move up the social and economic scale.”

“We have come to realize in modern times that the ‘melting pot’ need not mean the end of particular ethnic identities or traditions.”