Riassunto articolo ''Democracy versus the Melting Pot, A Study of American. Nationality'', Sintesi del corso di Letteratura

Scarica Riassunto articolo ''Democracy versus the Melting Pot, A Study of American. Nationality'' e più Sintesi del corso in PDF di Letteratura solo su Docsity! 22 ott. 22 Multiculturalism in the United States. Democracy versus the Melting Pot Horace Meyer Kallen (1915). According to the scholar Donna Gabaccia, "the immigrant paradigm of American History provides a familiar example. This historical interpretation defines the United States as a nation of immigrants, in which incorporation of foreigners symbolizes the promise and accomplishments of American democracy" (Gabaccia 1115). From the first English colonists to the African slaves, from the Scandinavians, Germans and Irish to those coming from Eastern and Southern Europe, from the Aslan to the American-Hispanic masses, many destinies have crossed and mixed In what many have described as a land of almost unlimited opportunities. Furthermore; This considerations reached a widespread and a more in- depth elaboration in those periods of American history in which the migration fluxes were greater, as were the consequences on the social equilibrium. The early twentieth century was one of these periods. In this context Horace Meyer Kallen (1882-1974), a philosopher of Jewish origin who became an influential liberal intellectual, elaborated his well-known theory of cultural pluralism, which anticipated the more recent multicultural theories, and which still today Provokes wide interest. Between 1900 and 1915 the currents of thought regarding the Identity question in America could be divided into two large categories: the anti-immigration movements, often characterized by openly racist tendencies, were challenging the assimilationist thought of the melting-pot theorists. The latter belleved that American identity should result from the fusion and integration of the diverse ethnic groups that made up the social fabric of the country, and saw therefore in the United States a place in which the different Old World ethnic identities disappeared to form a new nationality. The majority, believed that the new immigrants should integrate into the American society adapting themselves to the typically WASP principles and values of the country. Horace Kallen's theory of cultural pluralism represented a 'third way' through which he tried to affirm the positive value of ethnic differences. Two public debates stimulated Kallen's reflection: the first, and from a genealogical point of view the most important, was the one within American Hebraism between the integrated and pro-assimilationist elite of the German-Jewish community and the Zionists, whose ideology was more popular among the Jews coming from Eastern Europe. At that time no other ethnic group such as the Jews living on American soil seemed to suffer the same erosion of identity. The massive migration from the villages and ghettos of Eastern Europe had thrown thousands of immigrants into a country whose cultural traditions and habits were different. At the same time, the Jewish community was divided. On one side there were the Jews of German origin, most of whom had arrived in the United States from the end of the 1830s and were integrated into the social pattern of their new country, while on the other side there were the Jews of more recent immigration, chiefly coming from Eastern Europe and of humble economic conditions. The Jewish situation was unique. All of the other ethnic groups which had come to the United States in large numbers after the middle of the nineteenth century did not find well-established predecessors who were expected to take responsibility for the newcomers" (Hertzberg 179). The Jewish situation was different: since Gentiles were considering Jews of all origins as belonging to a single and cohesive community, "the 'German Jews' were ... trapped: they were inevitably involved with the 'Russian Jews', but they but they wanted to keep their distance" (Hertzberg 180). The conflict between these two souls of Hebraism in the United States became a true struggle for power. In the last decades of the nineteenth century, the Jews of German origin dominated the American Jewish establishment, above all thanks to their economic and social success. The arrival into the country of thousands of Jews from Eastern Europe (more than two million between 1880 and 1920) was therefore a source of deep concern for them, because it threatened, at the roots, the balance of power that had been established. The purpose of this brief historical review is to show how Kallen's polemics against Reform Judaism was part of a wider conflict between separate factions of American Hebraism. By adhering to Zionism, Kallen had developed an articulated criticism towards the German leadership of the Jewish American community and their assimilationist tendencies. It was in the sphere of this criticism that these ideas on ethnicity grew and developed, later converging in his writings on the American identity. The necessary conditions consisted in having a political unity behind them, a mother-country that was able to act as the center of irradiation of their cultural heritage. History. according to Kallen, proved the legitimacy of the national vindications of the Jewish people; the Jews in a remate past had had a mother-country which through the centuries had enabled the survival of a strong cultural tradition. For this reason only the refusal of the assimilation advocated by Reform Judaism and the endorsement of the Zionist option could be a feasible way to ensure a future to the Jews of the entire world. It is therefore evident how Kallen elaborated a strong anti-assimilationist disposition precisely in the context of his commitment to Zionism and of the conflict with the leaders of American Hebraism of German origin, who were adherents of Reform Judaism. The intrinsically positive value of cultural differences and the necessity for their perfection and preservation were in essence the assumptions on which Kallen based the legitimation of the demands made by the Zionist movement. The democratic and pluralistic nationalism that characterized his writings on Zionism and on the Jewish identity provided the conceptual foundations on which he subsequently developed his idea of multiethnic America as an answer to the racist and the assimilationist tendencies of the period. After this first partial enunciation Kallen defined in a more complete manner his theory of cultural pluralism in the article "Democracy Versus the Melting-Pot,* published in the Nation in February 1915. The main reasons that pushed him to voice his ideas on the identity question in a wider national context were the popularity reached by the assimilationist tendencies and the growth of studies and publications on American identity and on immigration coming from the intellectual and academic circles of the country. Assimilationism had received further resonance by the appearance of Israel Zangwill's play «The Melting-Pot», first staged in 1908. A British Jew and a writer, in 1905 Zangwill had left the Zionist movement to create a movement that