The limits of immigration are set not by economics but by political psychology—by backlash unconcerned with net benefits.
On October 5, 1908, a hammy melodrama made its début in Washington, D.C.: Israel Zangwill’s “The Melting-Pot,” a four-act play that introduced the dominant metaphor for the American immigrant experience. The plot is thin—a New York tenement romance threatened by an Old World blood feud is mended by the salvific power of patriotism. Mostly, it’s a pretext for pontificating about a new American religion. “America is God’s Crucible, the great Melting-Pot where all the races of Europe are melting and re-forming!” the protagonist, a struggling Jewish composer named David Quixano, proclaims. “What is the glory of Rome and Jerusalem where all nations and races come to worship and look back, compared with the glory of America, where all races and nations come to labour and look forward!”
The critics were mainly contemptuous. “Sentimental trash masquerading as a human document,” the New York Times judged. Across the Atlantic, the Times of London declared the play’s “rhapsodising over music and crucibles and statues of liberty” to be “romantic claptrap.” But when President Theodore Roosevelt attended the première he was utterly smitten. (“That’s a great play, Mr. Zangwill, that’s a great play!” he is said to have shouted.) The vivid allegory—of “souls melting in the Crucible” and divine fires purging inherited rivalries—imprinted something indelible on the American psyche.
この記事は The New Yorker の June 12, 2023 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
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この記事は The New Yorker の June 12, 2023 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
The Football Bro - Pat McAfee brings a casual new style to ESPN.
If, on a cool weekend morning in autumn, you happen to be watching “College GameDay,” on ESPN, don’t worry about figuring out which of the broadcasters behind the improbably long desk is Pat McAfee. He’s the one with the roast-pork tan, his hair cut high and tight, likely tieless among his more businesslike colleagues. The rest of the onair crew—Lee Corso, Rece Davis, Kirk Herbstreit, Desmond Howard, and, newly, the former University of Alabama coach Nick Saban—tend to look and dress and talk like participants in an old-school Republican-primary debate. McAfee, though, favors windowpane checks on his jackets and a slip of chest poking out from behind his two or three open buttons. If the others are politicians, he’s the cool-coded megachurch pastor who sometimes acts as their spiritual adviser.
The Dark Time. - On the Arctic border of Russia and Norway, an espionage war is emerging.
On the Arctic border of Russia and Norway, an espionage war is emerging. The point of contact between NATO and Russia's nuclear stronghold is the small town of Kirkenes. For years, Russia has treated the area as a laboratory, testing intelligence and influence operations before replicating them across Europe.
MIRROR IMAGES
‘A Different Man” and The Substance.”
OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY
Proximity to wealth proves perilous in Rumaan Alam’ novel Entitlement.”
EYES WIDE SHUT
How Monet shared a private world.
WITH THE MOSTEST
The very rich hours of Pamela Harriman.
HUGO HAMILTON AUTOBAHN
On the Autobahn outside Frankfurt. November. The fields were covered in a thin sheet of snow.
TRY IT ON
How Law Roach reimagined red-carpet style.
SORRY I'M NOT YOUR CLOWN TODAY
Bowen Yang's trip to Oz, by way of conversion therapy and S..N.L.”
SNIFF TEST
A maverick perfumer tries to make his mark on a storied fashion house.
