Melting Pot or Salad Bowl for Indonesian Culture?
MELTING POT or SALAD BOWL?
Imagine a big pot with a big hot fire underneath it. Everything is being melted together because of the heat of the fire underneath it. Then, Imagine a bowl full of salad. It has lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, etc. all mixed together but not combined. Each ingredient is still by itself.
We learned that the melting pot was an outdated metaphor for what Americans were supposed to be. In a melting pot, everyone was mixed together to become one single thing, all Americans, and perhaps without retaining your origins. The salad bowl was the better metaphor for us to learn about American and immigrants. In a salad bowl, different ingredients are all mixed together to make one thing, yet each ingredient also retains its own characteristics. They are not blended into some bland goo.
So, which one is Indonesia more like, a melting pot or a salad bowl?
Indonesia needs to be more like a salad bowl. It’s not right if you are basically forced to change your ways. Tradition/Culture is what forms a group of people. Without culture, everyone is the same. Cultural diversity is considered a positive thing. Immigrants have always been encouraged to maintain their traditions and their native language.This model of racial integration can be described as a salad bowl, with people of different cultures living in harmony.
What’s unique about the American society is that after the many years immigrants have assimilated, they have been able to mold themselves into the American identity but at the same time preserve their foreign culture. As Douglas Rivelin has said, “Immigrants come and change America and are changed by America”.
Anyway, God create humans in tribes, nations (more specifically, different skin color, hair, height, etc) just to know each other. You do not need to know each other if people are exact same copy of you.
Imagine a big pot with a big hot fire underneath it. Everything is being melted together because of the heat of the fire underneath it. Then, Imagine a bowl full of salad. It has lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, etc. all mixed together but not combined. Each ingredient is still by itself.
We learned that the melting pot was an outdated metaphor for what Americans were supposed to be. In a melting pot, everyone was mixed together to become one single thing, all Americans, and perhaps without retaining your origins. The salad bowl was the better metaphor for us to learn about American and immigrants. In a salad bowl, different ingredients are all mixed together to make one thing, yet each ingredient also retains its own characteristics. They are not blended into some bland goo.
So, which one is Indonesia more like, a melting pot or a salad bowl?
Indonesia needs to be more like a salad bowl. It’s not right if you are basically forced to change your ways. Tradition/Culture is what forms a group of people. Without culture, everyone is the same. Cultural diversity is considered a positive thing. Immigrants have always been encouraged to maintain their traditions and their native language.This model of racial integration can be described as a salad bowl, with people of different cultures living in harmony.
What’s unique about the American society is that after the many years immigrants have assimilated, they have been able to mold themselves into the American identity but at the same time preserve their foreign culture. As Douglas Rivelin has said, “Immigrants come and change America and are changed by America”.
Anyway, God create humans in tribes, nations (more specifically, different skin color, hair, height, etc) just to know each other. You do not need to know each other if people are exact same copy of you.