The American melting pot is a myth. On July 4, I’m reminded of the cost of being different
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The Fourth of July
Marcos Breton, Yousef Baig, Hannah Holzer and Jack Ohman.
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Fourth of July 2021: We celebrate so independently we forget to welcome each other
I now believe in the July 4 American ideal, not the July 4 American illusion
The American melting pot is a myth. On July 4, I’m reminded of the cost of being different
My generation is less willing to identify as patriotic. That doesn’t mean we don’t care about our country
Before I was born about 31 years ago, my paternal grandparents made a life-altering decision for me.
They didn’t want my brothers and me to speak Urdu, Pakistan’s national language. The rationale was it would make us seem too foreign, and we’d have a harder time fitting in.
Yet because of this uniquely American oblation, I missed out on a deeper relationship with my maternal grandmother. She only knew basic English thanks to daytime soap operas and her favorite show, “Little House on the Prairie.” As she faded in her later years, her English disappeared. So, too, did my ability to effectively communicate with the matriarch of my family when I wanted her wisdom most.
Historically, the collective diaspora in the U.S. has been presented with two choices: whitewash to play in the American sandbox or self-segregate into your own enclave. Each comes with its own trade-offs and sacrifices. Unfortunately, you don’t realize what they are until much later.
On the Fourth of July, I am reminded that even in a nation of immigrants, the U.S. demands a type of assimilation that requires costly compromise. In America, you can be who you are because we enjoy profound freedom. But keep that unique person at home. In public, you must be something else – this accumulation of ideas, handpicked by a mostly white Christian society, that America rewards with acceptance.
I doubled down on my grandparents’ decision in the aftermath of 9/11, as an 11-year-old growing up in a Muslim household in a suburban Atlanta city that was 82% white. There was good reason to. Anti-Muslim hate crimes rose tenfold nationwide in 2001, and they have remained roughly five times higher than pre-9/11 levels. America unified then like no other moment in my lifetime, and the common enemy were people who looked like me, with names like mine.
Simply to be accepted – and to shield myself from Islamaphobia and bullying – I rejected the cultural and religious aspects of my being. I presented myself as someone who was different only in name and skin color, and naively thought that was even possible. I lied constantly about who I was and where I came from just so I could make friends. I resented what made me different.
It sort of worked. I endured a lifetime of microaggressions before I learned what microaggressions were, but I had relatively normal teenage years. I didn’t get every party invite or land a lot of dates, but I also didn’t get tormented like other Muslim kids. For years, I wore preppy clothing brands and rocked a puka shell necklace in high school. I listened to Dave Matthews Band, I drank alcohol and I chased white girls.
Still torn
I continued that approach in college at the heavily socially-segregated University of Georgia.
Two decades removed from 9/11, I remain torn at the seams. I’m starting to plan an interfaith and interracial wedding, and I am overwhelmed by how much I struggle to add myself – my heritage, my culture – to the biggest celebration of my life. I suppressed so much of my identity for so long that I have no clue how to regain it, or if I ever will.
Living in California at least gives me the comfort and freedom to take that journey back. I am finally comfortable being myself again.
To me, the American melting pot is a myth. At best, it’s an aspiration.
This idea of the U.S. as a harmonious, heterogeneous nation, where assimilating can transform an immigrant into a blue-blooded American, stems from a 1908 play called “The Melting Pot.” Written by an English Jew, Israel Zangwill, the play opened in Washington, D.C., at the height of a historic influx of European immigrants – about 18 million between 1890 and 1920.
It was also a Schoolhouse Rock song, “The Great American Melting Pot.” In the video, lovely Lady Liberty opened a recipe book, found her favorite entry, and a bunch of people from different ethnic groups later swam around in a metaphorical pot. We’ve been showing it to children for decades.
This ideal asked too much of us – more than we had the capacity or understanding to provide for most of our nation’s history. In our efforts to create a shared culture and language, we also enabled white supremacy. As a result, many Americans like me who hail from communities of color still don’t have a sense of belonging.
Demand a seat at the table
For Elk Grove Mayor Bobbie Singh-Allen, the nation’s first directly-elected Sikh woman to hold the position, establishing an inclusive society is done at the individual level, she said. That’s something she learned from her political mentor, the late Joe Serna Jr., who served as Sacramento mayor in the 1990s.
Showcasing faith and culture is “our responsibility,” not the government or school’s, she said. Whether we like it or not, ethnic communities and people of color must actively inject their culture into mainstream society.
“We have a responsibility to demand that seat (at the table),” Singh-Allen said.
It’s this thinking that gives me hope. We see it catching on in this era of pioneers who are all activated and pushing America closer to its melting pot ideals. Sure, there is intense conflict and inner struggle between aligned groups on how to get there. But we are undoubtedly better today than we were when I was a naive, bespectacled sixth-grader cutting off my cultural appendages.
You can see the gains when it comes to representation in Hollywood or politics, or in every organization that launches a diversity and inclusion committee. These days, progress is popular, and that terrifies the bigots who sow division and cling to power.
America’s exclusivity will endure, and many will resist giving it up. But one day, it will be gone – long after most of us are dead. That’s what I’m celebrating on the Fourth of July. I don’t care about this country’s independence from England. I care about its promises – and the work we’re doing to eventually fulfill them.
This story was originally published July 4, 2021 at 5:00 AM.