The loss of minority groups’ cultural identities as they assimilate into American society will be the focus of a program next Monday (Feb. 11) at Eau Claire’s L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library.
The program will offer perspectives originating a century apart and half a world from each other. “On the Way to the Melting Pot—Then and Now: Waldemar Ager and Hmong History and Culture” is scheduled for 7 p.m. in the Eau Claire room on the library’s lower level.
The event is free and open to the public, and advance registration is not required.
“Melting pot” first used in 1780s
The “melting pot” metaphor was popular for many years as shorthand way to describe the assimilation of immigrant groups into a common “American culture.” The phrase can be traced back to the 1780s but came into more general use when it was popularized by a 1908 play of the same name, by British writer Israel Zangwill.
Zangwill used the phrase to describe how nationalities, ethnicities and cultures were blending into a single overriding American national culture.
The metaphor was challenged in 1963 with the publication of Beyond the Melting Pot by Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Nathan Glazer. Their book argued that immigrant groups in New York City – and, by implication, nationally – had maintained their ethnic identities through successive generations and would continue to do so.
That contention was controversial in the 1960s but has gained considerable acceptance over time. Various alternative phrases have been suggested to describe how assimilation works, or should work, including one that substitutes “salad bowl” for “melting pot.” This change recognizes that individual cultures can retain distinctive features that contribute to the dominant culture, rather than giving them up as they “melt” into it.
Hmong and Norwegian perspectives
Monday evening’s program at the library will look at this topic from both a current perspective involving Hmong language and culture and one that goes back to Ager’s concerns about the loss of Norwegian culture over a century ago. Ager, a newspaper editor and civic leader who came to Eau Claire about 120 years ago, emigrated from Norway to Chicago in 1885 when he was 16.
“(He was) a Norwegian immigrant who absolutely believed in the necessity in the new country to preserve the ‘mother tongue,’” according to Douglas Pearson, a past president of the Waldemar Ager Association.
The Association, a co-sponsor of the Monday evening program, is a local group formed in 1993 to save Ager’s Eau Claire home. It now operates the Waldemar Ager Museum: Center for Nordic Culture located in the home, which has been moved to 514 W. Madison St. in Eau Claire.
Monday’s program
Panelists on Monday’s library program will be True Vue, a bilingual education assistant at Locust Lane Elementary School; Khoua Vang, a Hmong language Instructor at UW–Eau Claire and a teacher at Flynn Elementary School; and Pa Sia Moua, also a teacher at Flynn.
Vue recently started a Hmong History and Culture club at Locust Lane Elementary School. According to a press release from the library, she is worried about the same things for Hmong culture that troubled Ager a hundred years ago when he published his first novel, On the Way to the Melting Pot.
Vue grew up immersed in both the Hmong and English cultures, and sees her Hmong students’ knowledge of their own culture disappearing.
Losing a language and culture
“My generation is losing our language and our culture, and our kids are losing them even more. Part of my mission is to save as much as we can,” Vue said.
During the library program, participants will be invited to consider how linguistic and cultural losses (and gains)—then and now—affect the lives of everyone living in the community.
More information is available at the library’s Information & Reference desk. It can also be obtained by calling 715-839-5004 or by email to librarian@eauclaire.lib.wi.us.
If you found this story useful, please remember there were costs involved in producing it. The CVPost has no paywall, and we rely on our readers to help us meet the costs of reporting community news and information you often won’t find elsewhere.
An annual CVPost membership is $50, but contributions of any amount also matter. Please consider helping community supported journalism survive by clicking the Donate button below.