Why Brexit Should Mean the End of Salad Bowl Societies

Living in a salad bowl society over 21 years of my life, I have come to learn that being individual and holding on to your own beliefs is a good thing; however. after moving to the United States and living a society where it is more a melting pot and not a salad bowl, my feelings have changed.  I no longer see being a salad bowl society as a good thing but something that could lead to mixed feelings and not all good ones. After what recently happened to the United Kingdom, I feel as though being in a melting pot society a better way to live life.

The United States has always been well known for being a melting pot society. Over many years, people from all over the world have come to the U.S. and totally assimilated. They leave behind traditions and cultures that they once practiced. There are some who still do but they usually are the elder people or those whose families have been in the U.S. for only a small number of generations. Italians, Germans, Irish, Japanese and many more people from anywhere you can imagine move to the U.S. and begin to celebrate holidays such as the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving as though it was own tradition to do so. This is because people see themselves as Americans before seeing themselves as whatever their heritage is or where their family comes from. They have a strong sense of pride for being American, and it is a good feeling to have.

Malaysia on the other hand, my home country, is not a melting pot and instead a salad bowl. Yes, it is a multiethnic country where we have people from all over the world living, however people here look at it as a positive thing to still practice individual traditions as well as keeping your individual culture alive and strong. We have immigrants come into the country for work and sometimes to later on become a citizen and people aren’t fazed by it because it happens all the time. People still speak their native languages, we have national holidays for various religious celebrations and every different ethnicity has special kinds of food that you can find all over the country. Different cultures are all living in harmony. Therefore, even though we say we are Malaysian, we still identify with being whatever our heritage is. For example, I am Malaysian Indian. It is because I come from a salad bowl society that I feel as though living in a melting pot society is better.

The United Kingdom has been known to be a salad bowl and for the longest time people have been happy that way or so it seemed. The U.K. always received many immigrants from Europe as well as everywhere else in the world.  Many people would study with hopes to end up securing a job there. Now after so long of accepting different cultures and different ways of life, the people from the U.K. no longer feel as accepting and have decided to go through with Brexit. By leaving the E.U., it will make life for international students a little harder. Students who once had to pay close to nothing for their education being from an E.U. country will no longer have that benefit and will have to pay international prices which are extremely high. People who had hopes to move to the U.K. are now unsure of whether the idea is still a good one or one that is not worth pursuing.

I always used to see that being in a salad bowl society was a good thing but now I only think of it as an interesting concept. Being together but still individual takes a toll on society as a whole.  My country isn’t perfect and, at any point of time, I could leave and go somewhere else or stay with the group I feel most comfortable with instead of working as a whole to fix the problem. The U.K., which is also a salad bowl society, decided to keep close to what they are most comfortable with and do away with the unknown. They want to keep their norms, culture and traditions and not so much others.

In the end, many people feel as though the U.K. has suffered a big loss by deciding to go through with Brexit. Being of a salad bowl society, although it is supposed to bring good because of how people learn to be accepting of differences as well as tolerant of other people’s beliefs, can bring feelings of being distant from others and not seeing a country one but many in one. The U.S. has the upper hand here as they view themselves as a whole which in turn stirs a lot of strong feelings about the country’s welfare that are less split than that of the U.K. I now see that being in a melting pot society is better than being in a salad bowl one.