Cultural Assimilation Essay

America is one of the countries that have rich culture. Being a large country, many people are living in it from different origins. Some migrated to this place for work or for other reasons, to experience green pastures. Since America is also in line with the latest fashion, many investors are placing their businesses in this place just to try if they can be successful with their field in this country. America is said to have all sorts of people from all over the world. Europeans, Asians, Russians and other native people are going to America for different reasons. There is a question that arises with the largeness of population of America and the variety of the people there. Is America more of a melting pot or a salad bowl? Melting point, as defined in the scientific manner is the temperature when a substance melts at a certain period of time. In the question given in this assignment, maybe the question is up to the way cultures are being transformed into something new after their migration to the state of America. And the questioning about the salad bowl might ask for the variety of the culture and kinds of people in America. To make the questions easier or in layman’s term, in what I understood about the statement, it asks if America is a place for the transformation of culture or is it a place that consists of variety of things? The site of America, in the viewpoint of other countries, is grand. Since many famous personalities came from this country, I guess it contributes with the fame of the country plus the famous infrastructures and the countries it has given influences. When people learned that life in America is great, that life here is too independent and fresh, green money could be earned, they emerged into going here for the sake of work. Maybe as time passes by, the country has become populated of people from different countries. In m opinion, America is more of a salad bowl since the culture and ideas of the people going here is not melted that nothing will be left. I guess the variety of the culture contributes in making it a salad bowl. As we all know, salad bowls are composed of different foods, fruits or vegetables, plus emulsifying agents like mayonnaise and some extenders. If people reached America, I think it will change the personalities of the people but not enabling them to lose their identities. The other culture of other people will just make it juicier but not change the composition of the culture or personality. It’s like changing a chocolate in syrup for a chocolate cake. We can see that the chocolate already mixed with the cake and it will be difficult for us to distinguish what or where the chocolate is located. Being a salad bowl, the mixture of the cultures and people in America is heterogeneous by which we can still distinguish one identity from the other, unlike with the mixture of powdered coffee and creamer where we will find difficulty of separating the two substances, a homogeneous mixture. My point here is that America really is a more of a salad bowl than a melting pot. In the set up, I guess nothing is lost. There is gain in the mixing of cultures in America since there are many things learned as cultures are being mixed. This is an advantage of it that people might learn the tastes of others and the crafts they are into. All in all, even if their journey or their stay in America changes the people a little, it is still for their better thus making them moving and motile. The personalities will not become stagnant. They will still develop into something new. White privilege might mean something that concerns the power of the white people since if we can look back in our history, white people have conquered a lot of countries in the world and this makes them as a powerful state. People see Americans or white people of high class compared to those with dark or darker skin tones. According from the article I have read, there could be culture cultivation by the time that people step in the land of America, that they will be able to penetrate, learn and apply the things that they will learn from that country thus growth will be evident. The process of cultivation is also the process of acceptance of the new resident in America. He/she should be able to learn to cope with the changes so as to live happily in America. References Cultural Assimilation And Consumption Behaviors: A Methodological Investigation. 2000. Retrieved 11 December 2007 from http://www. entrepreneur. com/tradejournals/article/68876925_3. html