MORE MIXING BOWL THAN MELTING POT

America has been rightly called a nation-of-nations. Unlike most countries, we're not one race & nationality; rather, a melting pot of dozens of races & nationalities. Lately, though, we are only mixing more than melting...!

It's never been easy for different races & nationalities migrating here. Always the same hard ascent struggling up from loathsome immigrant status eventually to some kind of respectable status. Especially true of the later waves of 19th & 20th C Irish, Italians, Greeks, Slavs, Asians, and now Latinos and Middle Easterners. As for the African-American, assimilation has been the most complicated and troubled of all.

And yet, while we grapple with this recurring national assimilation of newcomers into the ranks, there are daily examples within our ranks themselves. Examples of little sub-sets of Americans who seem to have evolved from within more than from without. Consider the examples all around us -- not planned or pure, but surely each a kind of social-economic sub-set.

Warning...! The danger here is in over-generalizing and/or profiling. Whenever it's tried, it usually means a fight. But then we've been fighting among ourselves along these lines for generations. So OK here's one more generalization. Not to put too fine a point on it, but have you noticed -- generally speaking -- the following patterns seem to hold true in our large metropolitan centers:

* hospital service staffs are often Black & Latino
* hospital nursing staffs Asian
* restaurant service staffs Latino
* restaurant waitress staffs East European
* home care-givers Asian, especially Filipino
* home lawn-service crews Latino
* police & security services African America
* cab drivers Middle Eastern
* barbers Italian

How to test this very unscientific speculation...? Very often it's simply a matter of listening to the language spoken. But why bother, you ask? Doesn't this come down to profiling? I don't think so. It's mostly an impressionistic appraisal of how we Americans continue to drift into traditional patterns. Groupings. Comfort zones.

Although such groupings have always been natural in this multi-national society of ours, the habit has and still does create problems for our union. Ghettos -- whether physical or cultural -- tend to preach only to their own choirs. Often failing to hear the ones that once helped bond us together with syndicated family radio programs, studio-generated family films, and a few national family magazines.

The challenge of holding this great big bundle of national/racial energy together has never been more essential. Yet more difficult. What to do? Keep on trying...