Comparing Randolph Bourne and Hiram Evans
Compare the two attached texts.Prompt (answer all parts): Both Randolph Bourne and Hiram Evans agree on one thing: that the ″melting-pot″ theory, which held that immigrants would naturally assimilate to the dominant host culture, did not work out the way social theorists had expected. However, they responded to this state of affairs in very different ways. How did Randolph Bourne respond to the failure of the melting-pot model? In what sense did he regard immigrants as quintessentially ″American″ despite retaining the traditions of their homelands? What value do immigrants add to the U.S., in Bourne′s estimation? What does Bourne mean when he says that America is ripe for a new kind of nationalism? How does he distinguish this nationalism from the nationalism of war-torn Europe, and how does he regard the First World War itself as evidence of this difference? What did the failure of the melting-pot model signify for Hiram Evans? What did Hiram Evans mean by saying that the Klan wants to make ″America American and for Americans″? Who does he define as true Americans here? Which groups does this definition exclude? What groups of people did Evans regard as a threat to the nation and why? What kinds of ″alien ideas″ did he regard as a threat to the nation? What does Evans′ account of different immigrant groups suggest about his belief in people′s capacity to change from one generation to the next? In your concluding paragraph consider the following: Which of these arguments (or which parts of their arguments) did you find more (or less) convincing and why? Reading these texts nearly a century after their publication, how relevant do you think the issues they address are to the problems of the present? In what ways might their ideas be updated to reflect concerns about immigration today?