The melting pot metaphor was replaced by a salad bowl, wasn't it? Assimilation (which is the melting pot) is now considered a crime against humanity and the whole "separate but equal" is the new hotness.
It was, and that's not altogether bad. A melting pot implies homogeneity and the loss of one's identity and history. A salad bowl is a pleasant mixing of everything, with each component still retaining its identity - a carrot is still a carrot, a radish is still a radish, and so forth. The irony is if I want to celebrate the zest of a radish then I'm told I'm being insensitive and appropriating the radish culture. As is so often the case we end up moving neither forward nor backward but sideways.
In the end I like the salad bowl metaphor because it scales well globally. We're a single human race, all different, yet all the same. It's appropriate to celebrate one another's histories so long as we're mindful of our collective future.
>A melting pot implies homogeneity and the loss of one's identity and history.
That's the contemporary narrative, yes. In another light it's just saying "E pluribus unum."
Before it became uncouth to express a spirit of national unity or civic pride, the melting pot was a way of expressing that who we are is defined by our coming together to participate in the great project we call our nation. And as part of that, we're sharing in the uniqueness each of us bring and hard boundaries start "melting" together as we form a shared history and culture. A very chunky concoction constantly getting new pieces added, not a smooth uniform mixture left to simmer.
We now live in an age where "identity" often means participating in a stereotype that's actively gatekept. So the melting pot metaphor had to fall out of favor.
E pluribus unum also comes from a time when we mandated that Native American schoolchildren cut their hair and not speak their native tongue. The melting pot ended up having a very WASPy complexion in the end and harmed those who were different from that ideal.
The salad bowl allows the individual to maintain and celebrate their heritage while coming together in a spirit of national unity and civic pride. Coming to America doesn't mean you lose your heritage or your history, it means you're part of something new - you've come to a part of the world where the entire world has come together, an example of what the world could be. People living in peace where elsewhere in the world they live at war.
E pluribus unum is a bit reminiscent of the fascis. I'm currently searching for a word for the rods, all trimmed to the same length à la Procrustes, that constituted fasces, and will report back here if I manage to find it.
(a different motto, unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno, not only mentions the relation of the parts to the whole, but also that of whole to its parts: https://hackertimes.com/item?id=24661326 )
Edit: so far I've learned only that the axe was the securis and that holders of high office would have their servants put the fascis on the ground, instead of holding them aloft, when they wished to emphasise they were on the people's side of an issue. Still no word for the individual rods, however.
The problem with salad is that there are people who don't care much for some ingredients and won't touch them. There's no such issue with strained soup: you either take it or leave it, there's no picking and choosing, the differences between the ingredients literally melt away (well, or they get chopped up!).
Like all metaphors, "the melting pot" has its limits. I've always thought it's for the best that, even though I'm mostly of English and Irish descent that I enjoy Indian, Italian and middle eastern food, and while maintaining my Catholic faith I have Jewish and Muslim coworkers whom I admire and look to examples.
While my identity is still "Irish Catholic," I've been enriched (and yes, changed) through exposure to others.
And you can't argue with salad because its healthy, and we are too fat, and we aught to be trying to live longer lives even though there's no incentive for most of us to prolong our misery.
Some Americans, anyway. Growing up in the US, I was always taught the US was "the great melting pot." But I agree, it doesn't seem like it lately.