and Protestant immigrants. Throughout the past 200 years Americans have attempted to weld millions of immigrants and their descendants from various sources (and Africans forced into slavery) into the contemporary American people.If the United States is not a true "melting pot," it may well be a complex "fruit salad" composed of widely disparate peoples, ethnic and racial groups, religious belief systems, and political orientations. Each of these groups has both helped to shape the American dream and has shared in that experience - sometimes happily - sometimes with great difficulty. One of the major influences on the shaping of the American economic system was a series of "waves" of immigration that helped bring about dramatic changes in the population census of the country.The United States of America has come to mean many different things to many different people. At the very heart of the "American dream" are the twin ideas of freedom and equality. This nation was founded on the republican principles of justice for all, friendship with all nations, and entangling alliances with none. These basic principles have, over time, undergone some changes. The United States today has, for example, any number of "entangling alliances" that are highly influential in shaping its domestic and foreign policies. Nevertheless, the principle of "justice for all" remains in force and continues to attract new immigrants each year, while fostering conflicted efforts to determine what actually constitutes "justice and equality."...
