Melting Pot or Salad Bowl or Some Other Culinary Metaphor?

My conspecifics at work have what seem to me pretty bizarre attitudes about immigration, especially since they are themselves either immigrants or the children or grandchildren of 20th century immigrants. They would like to see all the recent immigrants sent home, to which I reply that their cut off date, usually about 1980 or so, is arbitrary. Why not send away anyone descended from immigrants who arrived after 1900 or even 1850? The answer is that those earlier immigrants had the decency to "assimilate" whereas the recent arrivals maintain their own language and exotic customs rather than emulating real Americans.

I reckon that people can in good faith disagree about immigration policy and whther or not assimilation is desirable, but the "refusal to assimilate" argument is idiotic. My ancestors were doubtless troubled by the enormous wave of Irish immigrants back in the middle of the 19th century, what with their Catholicism and Irishness. I bet that the Irish did not assimilate right away and continued to dance jigs and play the pipes and eat potatoes for decades. And they still practice Catholicism for the most part.

The millions of immigrants who came through Ellis Island probably did not seem all that assimilated even 20 years or more after arrival. They lived in their enclaves, spoke their own languages, and held on to their customs and institutions. It was probably with sadness that they saw their children and grandchildren forget the old ways and the mother tongue. Sure, the second and third generations are Americanized to some extent, but it is unreasonable for them to demand that recent immigrants assimilate instantly. And I see no evidence that more recent immigrants are assimilating more slowly than immigrants from a hundred years ago. Of course, it is difficult to imagine how one might measure this.

The real issue it seems is that the recent immigrants are often not Europeans. My conspecifics have a difficult time imagining how such exotic people can ever fit in. They don't realize how exotic and savage their own ancestors seemed.