We hear the refrain, “We’re a nation of immigrants,” but that’s just more ill-thought-out bumper-sticker mentality because beneath the noise lies a much deeper philosophical divide.  The real debate shouldn’t be about immigration per se.  Rather, as a nation we need to figure out whether Americans still believe in our national motto, E Pluribus Unum or if we’ve  replaced it with the progressive salad bowl metaphor.

For most of our history E Pluribus Unum —“Out of many, one”— functioned as the country’s social glue.  Immigrants arrived with thick accents, unfamiliar customs, and little money, but within a generation they were a part of our social fabric.

In the mid nineteenth century the Irish arrived; poor, Catholic, and mistrusted.  But within fifty years they were running police departments, fire brigades, and political machines from Boston to Chicago.  Assimilation didn’t erase their heritage; it added it to the national identity.

The Italians began arriving in late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  And these immigrants came with strong regional identities, i.e., Sicilian, Calabrian, Neapolitan.  But by mid-century their grandchildren were serving in World War II, attending college, and marrying into families whose ancestors had once distrusted them.

Jews from Eastern Europe maintained their cultural traditions while simultaneously adopting American civic norms, language, and professional pathways, and became disproportionately influential in academia, science, and the arts.

These groups didn’t assimilate instantly– but they did assimilate!  They learned English, adopted our civic values, and stepped into the mainstream.  Their distinctiveness enriched the culture and “out of many, one” functioned as intended.

However, in the late 20th century, progressives began using the term diversity as if it were some type of immigration panacea, and “multiculturalism” entered the mainstream vocabulary.  Whether spoken or not, multiculturalism encourages immigrants to maintain distinct cultural identities indefinitely, with assimilation framed as optional and even oppressive by the progressive Left, which is one of the reasons we see so many Mexican flags at I.C.E. protests.

But the metric for public policy should be outcomes, not intentions.  And while multiculturalism sounds enlightened, its outcomes are anything but.  Quebec’s francophone/non-francophone divide in Canada is exactly what happens when linguistic assimilation isn’t expected.  The result?  A province that has flirted with secession for decades.

London and Paris now contain enclaves where new arrivals can go years without interacting meaningfully with the host culture—and in many cases even without learning their new country’s language.  As I wrote yesterday, the Somali community in Minneapolis illustrates this tension in the U.S.   While many have assimilated successfully, significant numbers remain culturally isolated, with language barriers and differing social norms slowing assimilation into the broader culture.

When the message is “stay as you are,” and when immigrants cluster in enclaves with no expectation to adopt the shared civic culture, the result isn’t diversity, it’s fragmentation.

Conflict is inevitable when newcomers arrive from cultures dramatically different from Western norms, e.g., Somalia, Afghanistan, rural Central America, etc.  With E Pluribus Unum, the expectation is clear: learn English, understand our civic values, adapt to the rule-of-law framework, and join a shared national identity.

However, the salad bowl expectation of maintain your original language, preserve your customs and integrate only as much as you feel comfortable is a recipe for disaster.  This is precisely why we have public schools providing translators for dozens of languages and engaging in programs that allow immigrants to function without assimilating.

The “salad bowl” ideal collapses not because progressives are plotting anything sinister, but because they’re far too willing to mistake sentiment for strategy.  They assume that society can function without a common culture, without shared expectations, and without guardrails—and that assumption is political fantasy.

When policymakers are armed only with feelings and slogans rather than wisdom, they generate precisely the outcomes they insist they’re preventing, i.e., deeper division, weaker social cohesion, and an America where fragmentation replaces unity.

Many of our parents and grandparents immigrated here and did not speak English, but they had no choice but to learn it.  In 2025, an immigrant from anywhere in the world can live in American cities such as Minneapolis, Los Angles, or Dearborn Michigan, and go shopping, attend school, and receive government services in their original language.   One model expects assimilation; the other accommodates non-assimilation.  So, guess which one actually produces national unity?

I’m not advocating that immigrants eschew their food, music, holidays, or heritage.  These are the rich aspects of culture that should exist because they add to the quality of life.   So, the question becomes, do we still expect newcomers to become part of one American identity, or do we allow our country to become a patchwork of micro-societies that share nothing but a ZIP code?

The historical record is clear, E Pluribus Unum, i.e., the melting pot produced unity out of diversity, while the salad bowl preserves diversity at the expense of unity.  And unity—not diversity—is what keeps a nation intact.

The United States of America is the most successful immigrant society in human history because of E Pluribus Unum, not the ‘Salad Bowl’ theory.