Salad bowl (cultural idea)
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The salad bowl is the idea that the United States is not a melting pot but a salad bowl. It is known as cultural mosaic in Canada. In the salad bowl model, all the different cultures are combined (like a salad) but they do not merge together as a homogeneous culture. Each culture keeps its own distinct qualities, just as a tomato does not take on traits of a carrot merely by being placed adjacent to it. This idea proposes a society of many individual, "pure" cultures, and has become more politically correct than the melting pot, since ethnic groups have the right to preserve their culture. The salad bowl has been accused of being a communitarianist model, while supporters of it speak of multiculturalism.
