Beyond the Melting Pot: The Negroes, Puerto Ricans, Jews, Italians, and Irish of New York City

Abstract

maintaining a distinct identity, albeit a changing one, from one generation to the next. One group is not as another and, notably where religious and cultural values are involved, tliese differences are matters of choice as well as of heritage; of new creation in a new country, as well as of the maintenance of old values and forms. Our discussion of these differences necessarily touches, even dwells, on the consequent, widely varying patterns of achievement in areas such as education, business, and politics. Understandably enough, the unevenness of achievement in such matters is the source of resentment and even bitterness by many individual members of the different groups. It may be that our discussion will also be resented by such persons, for much the same reason. We would therefore, in advance, ask a measure of forgiveness for taking up a subject which needs to be discussed, but which cannot be aired without giving pain to some.