In 1908, Israel Zangwill’s play The Melting Pot popularized a metaphor for American society that depicted immigrants blending into a homogenous culture. While this idea suggested that diverse groups would fuse into one unified whole, today’s America presents a very different picture. America nowadays is more akin to a “Great Cutting Board”. Large groups of immigrants no longer assimilate as they once did. Instead, as the world becomes more connected through technology and global communications, assimilation becomes harder, which is to the detriment of American society.

I spent years of my life in New York City, and the so-called “Greatest City in America” is perhaps the least American place I have ever lived in. New York City serves as a microcosm of what I call the Great Cutting Board Theory. Approximately 35% of New York City's population is foreign-born, compared to just 13% nationwide. While a majority of the city is native-born, it doesn't feel that way. New York City is not a melting pot of cultures; rather, it is a collection of isolated, self-segregated communities. A Great Cutting Board.

Research on ethnic enclaves reveals that major cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Miami foster segregated immigrant communities where residents can live without engaging with broader American society. In New York City alone, nearly 1.8 million people live in predominantly foreign-born neighborhoods, such as Chinatown, Brighton Beach, and Little Jamaica. These enclaves provide everything from schools to healthcare in their native languages, reducing the need for residents to learn English or assimilate into American culture. Instead of blending into a shared society, they remain distinct, separated by their ethnic identities. Take, for instance, Southern Brooklyn, where you’ll find a Russian neighborhood, an area for Orthodox Jews, and a Chinese immigrant enclave, all within a few miles of each other. There’s no reason for residents of these communities to leave the comfort of their ethnic groups. I witnessed this firsthand growing up with my Russian-born mother. Whether it was food shopping, car repairs, or legal services, there was always someone who spoke Russian. Even government services were available in Russian, not that my mother needed it, as she has spoken fluent English for more than 20 years. This availability of services in foreign languages enables immigrants to live in linguistic and cultural isolation. It’s telling that most New York City ballots are printed in multiple languages, such as Spanish and Chinese. This further cements the division between cultures in the city.

One of the most fundamental ways immigrants assimilate is through language. Yet today, many government services, including the DMV and Social Security, are available in multiple languages, which reduces the pressure to learn English. According to the National Academies of Sciences, immigrants do improve their English skills and economic standing over time, but the process is taking longer for recent immigrant groups compared to earlier waves of European immigrants. By the second generation, only 36% of immigrants report speaking English "very well," and 29% still speak a language other than English at home. This is not just a New York City issue—nearly every DMV in the country offers services in Spanish, further enabling immigrants to operate within linguistic enclaves rather than engaging with broader American society. If there is no shared language, then assimilation cannot even begin. It is a disgrace that the government coddles these immigrants who will not even take the first step to joining our Nation.

Another critical factor in assimilation is interaction with Americans. When immigrants shop, work, and socialize with Americans, they absorb cultural norms, values, and practices. These absorbed cultural norms and values begin to overwrite their own norms and values. Those norm and values are often nearly impossible to get rid of most of the time. For example, I remember how my mother clung to a Soviet habit of eating steak well-done for decades after moving to the U.S. This is a benign habit, but it underscores how deeply ingrained cultural practices are. More concerning, however, are immigrants who bring values or traditions that conflict with American principles. A Haitian immigrant may retain ties to voodoo practices, while a Muslim immigrant may carry cultural values that are at odds with Western views of freedom and gender equality. These are not simple habits that can be dropped overnight. Cultural beliefs rooted in childhood are difficult to discard unless the individual is immersed in American life and feels compelled to assimilate. However, when immigrants live in isolated communities, such immersion is less likely to happen. Instead of entering the Great Melting Pot, they remain an ingredient on the Great Cutting Board.

Children of immigrants offer another pathway to assimilation and perhaps the most consistent method of assimilation. As children of immigrants grow up being half-American, and half-foreign, they not only bring some American culture back to their household, but then their children start half-American and will take to becoming American easily, but this process has also become more complicated. In immigrant-dense areas, such as New York City, schools often become microcosms of the ethnic communities they serve. According to a 2020 report from the Brookings Institution, nearly 20% of students in New York City public schools are English Language Learners (ELLs), meaning they require specialized instruction in their native language. While these programs are critical for initial language development, they often delay full assimilation, especially when the majority of a school’s students share the same ethnic background. At my own high school, nearly every group of friends was segregated by ethnicity. Only a handful of students could be considered fully assimilated Americans. The rest, while technically American citizens, leaned heavily on their ethnic identities, setting back the process of assimilation by generations.

The internet and social media further complicate this issue. With the rise of global connectivity, it is easier than ever for immigrants to stay attached to their home cultures. According to a study by the Migration Policy Institute, 64% of first-generation immigrants regularly consume media from their home countries, whether through news sites, entertainment, or social media. This digital connection allows immigrants to remain rooted in their cultures of origin, slowing their integration into American society. In today’s world, an immigrant can live thousands of miles from their homeland, yet remain culturally isolated, interacting only with content, food, and people from their home country. Further keeping people as just an ingredient on Great Cutting Board.

While some argue that immigration boosts the economy, particularly in industries where growth outpaces natural population increases, the long-term cultural impacts are concerning. In the past, immigrant groups like Italians, Irish, and Germans were forced to assimilate due to limited language services and the absence of today’s digital connectivity. According to research by Harvard economist George Borjas, these groups largely assimilated within two or three generations. Today, however, immigrants from Latin America and Asia retain much stronger cultural ties to their homelands due to modern technology and government policies that provide services in their native languages. The multicultural model, pushed since the passage of the Hart-Celler Act in 1965, has weakened America’s ability to assimilate its immigrants. Instead of forming a cohesive society, we are at risk of becoming a nation of self-segregated ethnic ghettos, each community functioning in its own interest rather than the interest of the nation as a whole. As we continue down this path, America looks less like a Great Melting Pot and more like a divided Great Cutting Board, with fragmented pieces that never come together to form a unified whole.