How A Century-Old Play Refuted Identity Politics: “The Melting-Pot” by Israel Zangwill

The greatest play you've never read, with a message that's been actively suppressed.

The American “Melting-Pot” is a concept you may remember learning about in school. In short, it describes the process by which immigrants from various cultures can “melt” into a more homogeneous culture over time. Once broadly considered a core virtue of the American ideal, this concept has been under attack for decades. Alternative models such as the “Salad Bowl” or “Mosaic” have been put forward to replace it. Intended to represent multiculturalism, those metaphors visualize distinct cultures co-existing in the same space to form a greater whole.

Both models have some descriptive value, but the war between them is primarily a moral one. Should we value the give and take of cultural exchange that leads many to give up the distinctiveness of their ancestor’s cultures, but promises a better shared culture that has adopted all the best traits of its inputs? Or should we instead preserve the distinctiveness of historic cultures, preferring to find meaning in that which makes groups unique…