he melting pot approach to immigrant incorpora tion into American society has had limited success at best.
Assilimation in American society does not accorded a great deal of significance to the culture and ethos of the people being assimilated (Gordon, 1964, p. 60). Immigrant populations are expected to adopt the prevailing American culture and ethos during assimilation. Unfortunately, there are two factors which work against the success of assimilation in the United States. First, most immigrants, in the long term, at least, eventually rebel at the idea of being required to discard the characteristics and values of their own racial or ethnic back ground. Second, a substantial proportion of the general popu lation in the Unied States does not want a full assimilation of racial and ethnic minority populations into the country's popu lation majority. Immigrants in the United States are typically considered to be assimilated at that point where they have mastered the 3English language sufficiently, have learned American behavioral customs sufficiently, and have sublimated their own behavioral customs sufficiently to permit them to function in American society with a minimum of difficulty (Gordon, 1964, p. 63). This level of societal incorporation, however, is far less than what is required for the type of assimilation which would cre ate a true melting pot society. This level of societal incor poration, however, is as much assimilation as most members of the population majority in the United States desire.
The opposite pole of the assimilation cultural pluralism continuum cultural pluralism is often opposed on the grounds that its successful practice would lead to a balkanization of the United States. What the majority population segment in the United States really wants, thus, is for immigrants to the country to learn to get along in American society, but to (1) not try to become a part of that society, and (2) ...