Books: In Praise of Pluralism

BEYOND THE MELTING POT by Nathan Glazer and Daniel Patrick Moynihan. 360 pages. M.I.T. Press and Harvard University Press. $5.95.

In the great American melting pot—so the theory goes—all ethnic groups lose their distinguishing characteristics and blend into a homogeneous whole. It is the argument of this provocative book that the melting pot has done very little melting. However much these groups may have changed over the years, they have retained their identity. They differ as much as they ever did—and the authors think that it is good that they do.

Glazer, the son of Jewish immigrants, and Moynihan, the grandson of Irish immigrants, write with a refreshing candor on a subject that is usually treated all too delicately; in fact, they are rather free with sweeping generalizations. They write compassionately of the problems minority groups have faced, but they forthrightly point out that many of those problems are compounded by each group’s special characteristics.

The Negroes, for instance, face greater discrimination than any other group. Yet through no fault of their own, the years of slavery shaped the Negro character in a way that contributes to their difficulties. In the slavery economy, they were never able to learn even the rudiments of business, unlike even the poorest Europeans, who learned how to market their produce. Today the Negroes save too little, spend too much, and have developed fewer businesses than any other group. There are also more broken Negro homes—another legacy of slavery, argue the authors, when Negro families were broken up at the whim of their white masters.

Negro parents have trouble controlling their children and keeping them in school. Because of skimpy education, Negroes have made small progress in the professions. In 1910, there were 3,400 Negro doctors in the U.S. In 1960, there were roughly 4,500.

Separation by Choice. The Puerto Ricans’ problem is that their island is so close. They move back and forth between it and the mainland and thus keep their language, which in turn insures that they remain isolated (Spanish is more solidly established in New York City schools than Italian or Yiddish ever was). Migration is tough on Puerto Rican families. Mothers who had plenty of relatives to help with the children in Puerto Rico become hard pressed in New York. But Puerto Ricans have established 4,000 businesses in the city—more than the Negroes have—and they have formed a unique American community in which whites and Negroes can freely mingle and marry.

Though the Jews have scaled the social ladder faster than any other group, Glazer and Moynihan believe that they remain a separate community. Today’s middle-and upper-class Jews tend to live together as much as the first Jewish immigrants who crowded into the Lower East Side. Many of the suburbs where Jews have moved have become almost solidly Jewish. This is not so much a matter of discrimination as of choice. Jews are building more synagogues and parochial schools than ever.

The Italians’ problem is an over-strong family structure, say the authors. Most of America’s Italians have come from villages of Southern Italy and Sicily, and they brought their village ways with them. Family welfare comes before personal ambition. In this community’s “topsy-turvy values,” write the authors, a “bad” child is one who wants to leave home for an education. The “good” child stays home to help in the store. The ideal is someone like Frank Sinatra, “an international celebrity but still the bighearted, generous, unchanged boy from the block.” The authors even argue that the Italian sense of family loyalty accounts for the fact that Italians predominate in organized crime in New York City.

Too Long on One Rung. The Irish, who once ran New York City, now have a much-diminished voice in its affairs. It is true that many Irish have migrated to the suburbs, write the authors, but the Irish seem to have got stuck on one rung of the social ladder. They have too long enjoyed being ward heelers and policemen: “They seem to have ruined their talent by playing one role over and over until they could do little else.” Another trouble is drink. A study showed the rate of alcoholism to be three times greater among the Irish than any other white group. It is more serious today because a manual laborer could put in a day’s work half loaded, but a doctor or a lawyer cannot.

Recent issues have also separated Irish Catholics from the rest of the community: federal aid to schools, the question of Communism. The Irish Catholic’s in discriminate anti-Communism seems to have been vindicated by later events, but it may not have been good for the Irish in the long run. During the McCarthy years, the authors write, “to be an Irish Catholic became prima facie evidence of loyalty. Harvard men were to be checked; Fordham men would do the checking. The disadvantage of this is that it put the Irish back on the force. It encouraged their tendency to be regular rather than creative.”

All of these groups are and feel wholly American, but, the authors insist, they remain hyphenated Americans. Far from deploring this, the authors argue that these separate identities add to the richness of the national fabric. More than any European state, they write, the U.S. is a plural society where different groups and sections are always jockeying for position and prestige.