America's 'melting pot' was never more than a covenient myth — here's why

A viral moment on a recent episode of Jubilee Media's "Surrounded" reignited one of the most contentious discussions in American history: What exactly is the “melting pot”? And has it ever even really existed?

Journalist Sarah Stock confronted progressive commentator Sam Seder on the topic, challenging his claim that America has always been a multicultural melting pot rather than a nation fundamentally built by white Europeans.

By the mid-20th century, the every-man-for-himself jungle of immigrant striving had more or less succeeded in turning white ethnics into generic 'whites.'

The exchange set off a firestorm online, with even conservative commentators like Matt Walsh and Michael Knowles acknowledging Stock’s point that America’s foundational identity was, in fact, shaped by European settlers and their descendants.

And Stock is right.

Melting-pot myth

For over a century, Americans have been sold the myth that this country is a “melting pot,” a place where diverse peoples come together, mix, and magically form a singular national identity.

Stock has subsequently clarified her views via posts on her X account. The U.S. used to be predominantly white and Christian, which meant that the dominant American culture worked within the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant framework, and the demographic displacement of its native population has caused this cultural framework to erode.

Which would naturally lead you to ask yourself: What even is America at this point?

If you ask me, the America I knew from only 20 years ago doesn’t even exist any more.

But I think the conversation that Sarah Stock initially ignited has actually begun to stall.

We need to answer this question, and to do so, I think we need to go even deeper into the mechanisms that have dictated immigration in America since its inception. We need to know why immigration is the way it is in America.

Huddled masses

Circa 1905: Immigrants waiting in line to pass through customs at Ellis Island, New York City. Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images

You see, yes, the country was built by white Europeans, but that is only half the story. The other half (the dark, inconvenient truth) is that immigrant labor has always been a crucial, required component of America’s economic system.

Bleeding-heart liberals like Seder like to see the “melting pot” as a descriptor of America’s almost magical social fabric, that the melting pot stands as a symbol for liberty, cultural harmony, and economic opportunity.

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses.”

But the reality that fully grown adults actually acknowledge is that immigration in America has been about a ruling class using waves of cheap, foreign labor to fuel economic growth while preventing working-class solidarity. Always has been. Always will be. This has been the American strategy for centuries, since the country’s founding.

A brief history of American immigration

Chinese railroad workers in California, late 1800s. George Rinhart/Getty Images

To understand what I’m talking about, we need to look at America’s long history of using immigration as an economic tool. Each major wave of immigration was not some organic, spontaneous movement. It was an intentional policy designed to fill labor shortages and prevent native-born workers from gaining too much power. And they’ve come in generational waves.

• Indentured servants and early labor (1600s-1700s): Before African slavery became dominant, colonial elites relied on indentured servants from Britain, Ireland, and Germany. These workers were bound by contracts but could eventually gain freedom.
• African slavery (1600s-1865): The Southern economy was entirely dependent on slavery, while Northern industry also profited indirectly.
• Chinese immigration (1840s-1882): During the California Gold Rush and the construction of the transcontinental railroad, Chinese laborers were brought in because they were cheaper and more expendable than white workers. But their presence led to backlash from white laborers, especially Irish immigrants, who saw them as unfair competition. This led to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the first explicit restriction on immigration.
• The Ellis Island Wave (1880s-1924): Italians, Poles, Irish, and other Catholic immigrants flooded America’s industrial centers, providing cheap labor for factories, shipyards, and mines. These were the people who actually built what we know as modern America.
• The Bracero Program and Latino immigration (1940s-present): During World War II, the U.S. needed agricultural labor, so it brought in millions of Mexican workers under the Bracero Program (1942-1964). Even after the program ended, Latino immigration continued, filling roles in construction, agriculture, and service industries.
• The Hart-Celler Act and mass immigration (1965-present): The Hart-Celler Act of 1965 removed national quotas, opening the floodgates to mass immigration from non-European countries. This was framed as a moral correction to past racial restrictions, but in practice, it served the same economic function as every previous wave: importing cheap labor to replace an increasingly expensive native workforce.

Why the Hart-Celler wave is different

The Hart-Cellar wave is the one affecting us today. But what makes this wave different from the past ones is that the cultural expectations have completely changed. The newest wave of immigrants are simply populating, not assimilating.

But what does it mean to assimilate?

The Ellis Island wave of immigrants is the key factor here that provides us the crucial perspective on this issue. They were the white ethnics, or Europeans, who came to America in search of a better opportunity at the turn of the 20th century.

The rise of 'unmeltable ethnics'

In his book "Unmeltable Ethnics," Michael Novak describes what he calls the “Nordic Jungle” to paint a picture of America from the perspective of the white ethnic immigrant.

When white ethnics (Italians, Irish, Poles, and Jews) came to America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, they were forced to assimilate into a rigid Anglo-Protestant system. Catholics were expected to adopt Protestant work habits. Eastern Europeans were discouraged from maintaining their languages and traditions, and over time, even within their own communities, their cultural markers faded.

The Catholic and Eastern European presence in America was heavily policed by WASP elites, who demanded cultural submission in exchange for social and economic advancement.

Beyond cultural assimilation, Anglo-American industrialists used another strategy: the intentional division of the working class.

Novak highlights how factory owners purposely staffed their workplaces with a mix of Italians, Irish, Poles, and Jews, ensuring that linguistic and cultural barriers would prevent them from organizing effective labor movements. An Italian worker and an Irish worker might both be exploited by the same employer, but if they could not communicate, they could not unionize.

Sound familiar?

Creating 'whites'

This was not incidental. It was by design. The ruling class knew that a fractured labor force was a controllable labor force. By keeping workers divided along ethnic lines, employers maintained low wages and suppressed worker power, all while reaping enormous profits.

By the mid-20th century, the every-man-for-himself jungle of immigrant striving had more or less succeeded in turning white ethnics into generic “whites.” The price of admission into mainstream America was the erasure of their cultural distinctiveness. By the time their descendants reached the 21st century, they were left with a diluted identity: part of the undifferentiated category of “white,” yet stripped of the distinctiveness their ancestors once had.

But if it had remained this way, it could have worked. The Ellis Island immigrants became American. They were ultimately able to find upward economic mobility with the sacrifices they made. They made the idea of “assimilation” legitimate and credible.

But here’s the rub. America’s economic system doesn’t stop churning. It needs more immigrants. It needs cheaper labor. It needs wider margins of profit. America’s reliance on imported labor will simply never change.

But tragically, one critical factor has: The dominant Anglo-Protestant culture that once forced assimilation is gone.

Breeding resentment

And so we find ourselves in an unprecedented situation. Immigrants (especially non-European ones) are still being brought in as cheap labor, but they are not being pressured to conform to a singular national identity. Instead, they are maintaining their distinct and often conflicting cultures, with encouragement from the ruling class, which now views “diversity” as both a moral good and an economic strategy.

This creates resentment among two groups:

• WASPs
• Descendants of white ethnics

For generations, immigrants were expected to “melt” into American society, but now there is no singular identity to assimilate into. Instead of the melting pot, we now have a multicultural patchwork, where new arrivals are encouraged to retain their distinct identities rather than blend into a larger national fabric.

This shift has created a unique tension. The descendants of white ethnics (Italians, Irish, Poles) who were forced to abandon their cultural roots in order to “become American” now see today’s immigrants maintaining their identities with no pressure to assimilate. Meanwhile, old-stock WASPs, who once dominated American culture, find themselves increasingly alienated. The two groups, once set against each other generations ago, now share a common grievance.

A Haitian man carries his daughter in a stroller during a caravan en route to the United States in Escuintla, Mexico, on January 17, 2025. Anadolu/Getty Images

However, if I were to look into my crystal ball, it won’t make any difference how aware white Americans become of the gradual loss of WASP culture (and the necessary social pressure it created), because this strand of awareness ultimately does not address America’s economic need for generational immigrant imports … even if there are immigration restrictions set in place.

A larger cycle

You must remember that while America requires mass immigration, there have also been periods where immigration was dramatically restricted. But these restrictions were never a rejection of the system itself. They were merely an ebb in the larger cycle, a temporary pullback before the inevitable next wave.

Take the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. For decades, Chinese laborers were brought in to build railroads and work in mining, but their presence led to backlash from white laborers, especially Irish immigrants, who saw them as unfair competition. Once their labor was no longer needed, they were scapegoated and banned.

Similarly, the Immigration Act of 1924 imposed strict quotas on those same Southern and Eastern European white ethnics we were talking about before, largely in response to fears that America was changing too quickly.

The Great Depression saw another contraction in immigration, as the country simply had too many unemployed workers. But as soon as the economic system required more labor, the floodgates opened once again. The Hart-Celler Act of 1965, which overturned restrictive quotas, wasn’t an accident. It was the system swinging back into expansion mode, just as it had before.

This is why purely restrictionist approaches to immigration never fully solve the problem. Even if the border were completely shut down today, the economic forces driving immigration would remain unchanged. Eventually, whether through legal or illegal means, labor would be imported again because the system requires it.

The restrictionist periods are not victories against mass immigration. They are merely the system catching its breath before resuming its natural course.

So to bring it full-circle, yes, America was built by white Europeans.

Yes, immigration has dramatically changed the country.

But the real question is why this process has unfolded the way it has.

The reality is that mass immigration was never about national identity. It was always about labor.

Cheap labor over social cohesion

The engine of the American economic system always prioritized cheap labor over social cohesion, bringing in new waves of workers every generation, forcing them to assimilate just enough to be useful but keeping them divided enough to prevent real solidarity.

Understanding this history is crucial. The melting pot was never real. It was just a myth designed to justify an economic system that thrives on perpetual labor replacement. And until that system is addressed, the cycle will simply roll on in perpetuity.