I was raised at a time it was popular to talk about America as a melting pot. We took in people from everywhere and turned them into Americans. It was good for them and it made us great.
The idea and the dream was that no matter where you came form or what problems you may have had, in America you had the chance to succeed restricted only by your abilities.
We believed it but it wasn't completely true.
It certainly worked better if you were from a Western European country. If you were from Asia or Africa or to some extent even Eastern Europe, it was much harder.
Today we have a President who has rejected the very concept of the Melting Pot America and wants to make us great again. Since the thing that made us greatest was the blending of talents and abilities from everywhere a policy of exclusion is hardly going to make us "great again".
Some remember the past through the rose colored glasses of nostalgia and a lot of it was great, but what wasn't was the way we treated certain people because of their skin color, religion, gender preference, or politics. Its time to stir up the melting pot some more and create the America of the future where we can really achieve greatness using the talents of all our people, not just some.
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