As a “nation of immigrants,” the United States has demanded that newcomers (and existing Native American populations) learn social and cultural citizenship, blending into the “melting-pot” in acceptable ways, whether in sports, military service or the preoccupations of life in the suburbs. Given public norms of freedom and democracy, however, negotiating acceptance and use of perceived values creates paradoxes.

Not all features are equal. For example, shared political economic goals of advancement within a liberal capitalist state have been primary, and those perceived as “outside political agitators” have met the limits of freedom, whether Scandinavian socialists or Latino Marxists. This entails patriotism as well: Japanese American males proved their loyalties in the Second World War by volunteering to fight while their families were interned in camps. The American dream is to make it, not to change it (when one’s assimilation might be called into question). For early immigrants, postwar movement from ethnic enclaves into new suburbs provided a homogenous “Americanness.” The stereotype of Asian Americans as a “model minority” because of their work, educational success and acquisition of middle-class goods reaffirms these goals.

Language also has been a primary but contested issue, especially with new immigrants who have used the discourse of civil rights and ethnic identity to maintain language and media. Most, like their nineteenth-century forebears, still learn English rapidly by the second generation: schools are a major force in teaching language and social mores. Yet tensions may arise between bilinguals and English monolinguals, threatened by prerequisites associated with bilingual status (see English Only). Mass media, since the turn of the century, have been seen as potent vehicles to teach immigrants language and customs. Hollywood studios, at the same time, often hid the ethnic origins of stars and producers in putting this American dream on screen.

Religion, by contrast, was a major assimilation issue in the nineteenth century when Roman Catholic and Jewish immigrants were perceived to threaten Protestant hegemony. This has faded over generations, but growing immigrant religions like Buddhism, Islam and Hinduism have “Americanized” some public activities to establish their status. Indeed, religion has become an “acceptable” form of diversity which immigrants might display—like food, fashion (on ritual or festive occasions), parades, dance and music. Often, these features can create a dual identity over generations as teenagers cast off everyday jeans and T-shirts (a global assimilation) and don unfamiliar costumes for school events celebrating multiculturalism. Transnational ties, in which beliefs and practices move between different worlds, further complicate the assimilation of some new immigrants.

Yet an ethos of potential assimilation and permissible diversity cannot mask the central historic dilemma of assimilation—one may vote, earn, talk, eat and dance like an “American,” yet fail to “look” like one. This is especially true for African Americans, with centuries of participation in American society shaped by continual exclusion.

Programs since the Civil Rights era have fostered, within limits, integration in schools, residences and workplaces. Yet middle-class blacks may complain that they cannot get a taxi, or face police harassment because of race, ignoring other American traits and commitments that constitute successful assimilation. The issue has also divided blacks from the debates of W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington at the turn of the century, through the Black Power movement of the 1960s and its heirs. Assimilation here can be seen as giving up traits and values as well as taking on a shared culture, and must also confront the differences that remain after centuries of being in America and shaping American culture. Moreover, this is an internal debate as well: middle-class African Americans may be called “whites” or “Oreos” by other blacks (black on the outside, white on the inside, like “Bananas” for Asian Americans); “passing”—pretending to be white—is an extreme case that has nonetheless gained media and literary attention.

Hence race remains the test—and failure—of the melting-pot.