New Bay Area immigrants moving beyond 'melting pot' vs. 'salad bowl' debate

Most new citizens are trying to understand what it means to be American, how much of their own culture to give up and change, etc.    - - Donna Poisl

By Matt O'Brien, Bay Area News Group

When she founded the International Institute more than a century ago at a time of increasing anxiety over immigration, social reformer Edith Terry Bremer proposed a novel concept: To be American, you didn't have to forsake everything you left behind.

Bremer has fallen into obscurity, but her philosophy still guides immigrants such as Haile Negussie, who enjoys a comforting support network in the Bay Area's strong Ethiopian community even as he tries to "learn different things" and "meet different people."

His story is common in the Bay Area, where nearly 1 out of every 3 people was born in another country, and where many immigrants have successfully integrated themselves into the region's civic and economic fabric even as they sustain a polyglot web of cultures and languages.
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