- published: 09 Aug 2012
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The melting pot is a metaphor for a heterogeneous society becoming more homogeneous, the different elements "melting together" into a harmonious whole with a common culture. It is particularly used to describe the assimilation of immigrants to the United States; the melting-together metaphor was in use by the 1780s.
After 1970 the desirability of assimilation and the melting pot model was challenged by proponents of multiculturalism, who assert that cultural differences within society are valuable and should be preserved, proposing the alternative metaphor of the mosaic or salad bowl – different cultures mix, but remain distinct.
In the eighteenth and nineteenth century, the metaphor of a "crucible" or "(s)melting pot" was used to describe the fusion of different nationalities, ethnicities and cultures. It was used together with concepts of the United States as an ideal republic and a "city upon a hill" or new promised land.[citation needed] It was a metaphor for the idealized process of immigration and colonization by which different nationalities, cultures and "races" (a term that could encompass nationality, ethnicity and race) were to blend into a new, virtuous community, and it was connected to utopian visions of the emergence of an American "new man". While "melting" was in common use the exact term "melting pot" came into general usage in 1908, after the premiere of the play The Melting Pot by Israel Zangwill.
Un, deux, trois, cha cha cha
Piripipon, que rico son, Piripipon, oh yeah
Oye nina bella ponte a gozar
Oye nina bella baila el cha cha cha
Listen to me babe, listen to my song
I want to dance the cha cha with you all night long
Piripipon, que rico son, Piripipon, oh yeah
Oye nina bella ponte a gozar
Avanti bambina, io sono innamorato di te la ragazza
Y Changó dice
Oye nina bella ponte a gozar
In a melting pot, listen to mi rhythm
Babe do it, rub it to me babe