Answer:
Israel Zangwill was born in London, England, in 1864 to eastern European immigrants. He was educated at
a Jewish school. When he became a writer and a playwright, his Jewish education and Jewish background
gave him plenty of material to accurately describe the struggles of the Jewish immigrant in his writings.
Zangwill wrote a play called The Melting Pot. The play opened in Washington in 1908, when European
immigration to America was at its highest rate. The play is based on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
It is set in New York City. The main character, David, is a recent Russian Jewish immigrant to America. He
falls in love with a Greek-Orthodox Russian girl. David is able to overcome the racial prejudices between
their two cultures, and he reflects on the idea that it is possible for people from various cultures
and communities to meld their identities and become part of one American culture. The idea of the
“melting pot” relating to American culture was believed to have been initiated by French writer Hector
St. Jean de Crèvecoeur, but Zangwill’s play established the term in popular culture. The “melting pot”
theory proposes that immigrants from different countries and cultures can come together in a new
setting, assimilate, and take on a new identity representing their new culture.
At the time that Zangwill’s play opened in Washington, many people did not believe that a “melting
pot” phenomenon was possible. Nativists did not believe that the American people wanted to
assimilate with other cultures, and they did not believe that the new immigrants wanted to assimilate
with the cultures already established in America. Nativist voices opposing immigration were a major
part of the public conversation about whether a melting pot in America was possible.
Explanation:
