Melting Pot Has Been Destroyed by Diversity

Good points made in this letter to the editor of the International New York Times.

To much diversity as bad -- maybe worse -- than too little. The awful price of multiculturalism, divided societies, with hyphenated Americans. It embeds people in what "community" you are, not on who you are or what you can be.

You cannot become Chinese or Hispanic or Eskimo; one is either born so, or not. But one—everyone—can choose to become American ("At Home in America" by Aatish Taseer, Review, July 2). I know, because I did, immigrating to this country in 1959. I did not abandon my Hungarian origins or family, but I did embrace the values and mindset of a free and brave people, bound by common ideals and a heritage that was inheritable and sharable by the simple act of pledging allegiance to a flag.

Sadly, the melting pot of my youth is gone, replaced by an insidious celebration of diversity. Diversity celebrates not common goals, common values, common aspirations and certainly not who you are. Diversity enshrines what you are, embeds you in what "community" you belong to.

I am glad that Mr. Taseer has found his home, as I did so many years ago. But I fear that few of his fellow American immigrants and citizens share his longing to be "free of the past, and safe in the future." Rather, they are busy throwing away our common American identity in the name of diversity. Differences, "the knots of intractable history that [are] integral to identity," divide and rule more and more every day in America, too.

A. Jackson

Avila Beach, Calif.