@shmibs @Moon I think the point the people saying that try to say is from the point of view of the immigrant; if you're proud of your culture you shouldn't be willing to lose it to assimilate. And from the receiving culture's viewpoint, obviously they don't want it replaced by immigrating culture. The result of parsing these two opposing viewpoints being "perhaps immigrants of a different culture shouldn't come here at all", which is consistent with what they say and do, I suppose.

They're still operating within the salad bowl metaphor though, both "sides" here are, and I think the melting pot one works as long as you respect the pot's ability to melt the content and not just dump everything in at once.