Word: ethnics
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...difficult for me to envisage any kind of melting pot. As far as I know, in a melting pot all colors turn out grey. I see the American ethnic groups as a huge symphony orchestra in which each instrument retains its own characteristics, makes its particular contribution and, together with the other instruments, creates a wonderful or a terrible sound. Surely, to achieve a good sound, a French horn does not become a violin, nor does a piccolo turn into a kettledrum; rather, each strives harder to play in harmony with the others...
...Ethnic and racial humor, virtually taboo during the selfconsciously liberal years following World War II, is more acceptable than ever. The jokes are not the same as in the old vaudeville days, when they were based on the comic ignorance of the victim. The Rastus and Izzie jokes are gone. Today it is largely Jewish comedians who tell jokes about Jews, Negro comics about Negroes. Italian Comedian Pat Cooper (Pasquale Caputo) tells how his seven-year-old son asks what N.A.A.C.P. stands for. When he is told that it stands for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People...
...great deal of ethnic feeling is still enshrined in political rituals. In New York City, for instance, there are the infuriating, hopelessly provincial national parades (on St. Patrick's Day, Columbus Day, etc.), which paralyze Manhattan to very little purpose. Some Italians still get excited when somebody pushes Leif Ericson's claim to be the discoverer of America, and John Gronouski, now U.S. Ambassador to Poland, was jeered by Polish fraternal organizations in the Midwest when they discovered that he could not speak the language. (He took some quick lessons.) There are many lingering ethnic sensibilities on foreign...
...subtlest melting process on the U.S. scene, the ethnic minorities (which together actually constitute the majority) greatly and constantly influence the Anglo-Saxon minority in culture, fashion, food and even philosophy. At the same time, the ethnic minorities continue to admire the Anglo-Saxon model. "The American's image of himself," says Professor Will Herberg of Drew University, "is still the Mayflower, John Smith, Davy Crockett, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln . . . and this is true whether the American in question is a descendant of the Pilgrims or the grandson of an immigrant from southeastern Europe." In politics, write Harvard...
...another by the thousands. Says Professor Daniel Moynihan, director of the Harvard-M.I.T. Joint Center for Urban Studies: "We are the only nation in the world that has seriously undertaken to establish a biracial democracy. We have shown a fantastic capacity to absorb an incredible range of ethnic groups. If this looked easy, the world is beginning to learn it is damn hard. America has something to teach here...