Rednecks, Norteños, and the Next American Melting Pot?

Abstract

When Americans are frightened by ethnic or racial polarization, one response is the melting pot, a metaphor for intermarriage. Marriage across ethnic or racial lines turns distrustful groups into contributors to each other’s demographic future. Melting pots have been multiple in American history. While they often have been constrained by racial prejudice, racial intermarriage is now on a slow but steady upswing. Two groups that bear watching are Rednecks, who descend from British migration to what is now the United States, and Nortenos, a term I use to refer to Mexican migration streams that, like Rednecks, have become a cultural model for a wider spectrum of Americans. Both Rednecks and Nortenos originated as frontier populations in which the struggle for survival selected for self-reliance, distrust of government and the family-first principle. While both are beset by pejorative imagery of machismo, racism and criminality, their strong sense of kinship is a sign that they have more in common than might appear. Just as it is a mistake to reduce all relationships between white and black Americans to racism, it is also a mistake to assume that Nortenos and Rednecks are necessarily hostile to each other. Despite the limitations of the melting pot metaphor, it does provide a plausible alternative to racialism.