Trans-national America

“What shall we do with our America? How are we likely to get the more creative America—by confining our imaginations to the ideal of the melting-pot, or broadening them to some such cosmopolitan conception as I have been vaguely sketching?” —Randolph Bourne, in Trans-national America, 1916

    

Trans-national America, was published in 1916 in The Atlantic Monthly by Randolph Bourne. While World War I was raging in Europe, native-born Americans became increasingly suspicious of the pockets of immigrant culture thriving among them. In his article, Trans-national America, Bourne disagreed with these attitudes and stated that the United States should accommodate immigrant cultures into a “cosmopolitan America,” instead of forcing immigrants to assimilate to the dominant Anglo-Saxon-based culture. He called for a new trans-national America.

Bourne’s positions in Trans-national America are as thought-provoking and relevant as ever for students of history, political scientists, and others interested in the current discussion about immigration in America.