Reinventing the melting pot: the new immigrants and what it means to be American

Abstract

In Reinventing the Melting Pot, twenty-one of the writers who have thought longest and hardest about American immigration come together around a surprising consensus They conclude that immigrant absorption still works - and given the number of newcomers arriving in the US today, the nation's future depends on it. On the other hand they believe that immigration need not be incompatible with ethnic identity - and that as a nation America needs to find new ways to talk about and encourage becoming American. In the wake of 9/11 it couldn't be more important to help these newcomers find a way to fit in. Running through these essays is a single common theme: although ethnicity plays a more important role now than ever before, today's newcomers can and will become American