The “Triple Melting Pot”: Did Religion Build American Identity?

Bro History

News, Society & Culture, Politics, History

4 • 929 Ratings

🗓️ 6 October 2025

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Are we actually a “melting pot”… or three of them? On Today's Episode, we unpack Will Herberg’s 1955 idea of the Triple Melting Pot—how 20th-century immigrants didn’t just blend into one “American,” but largely assimilated along religious lines: Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish. We track how parish schools, marriage patterns, and urban political machines forged identity—and how that fed party politics from Boston ward bosses to Nixon’s “silent majority.” Then we fast-forward: shifting definitions of “whiteness,” interfaith marriage today, and what current immigration waves might mean for the next American identity. TIMESTAMPS 00:00 – Cold open: new format, October vibes & Hawaiian shirts 04:00 – The big question: immigration, demographics & the “future American character” 08:05 – The Triple Melting Pot (Herberg 1955): Protestant / Catholic / Jewish lanes 12:00 – Old American sectarianism: Puritans, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Quakers 16:00 – Marriage data: interfaith vs. intra-faith patterns in the mid-20th century 19:05 – Parish schools, Knights of Columbus & the urban machine politics 21:10 – Party alignment: ethnic Catholics vs. old-stock Protestant America 22:45 – The Solid South, realignment & Nixon’s 1972 landslide 28:00 – “White America”: how the term shifted from civil-rights era to immigration debates 30:10 – Today’s picture: intermarriage up, taboos down—so what binds identity now? 34:00 – Mexicans “absorbed,” new waves, and why 1950s frameworks miss today This is a segment from a longer Bro History recording. Get full episodes early & ad-free on our Substack. Links to our other stuff on the interwebs: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BroHistory⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://brohistory.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ #338 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:32.5	What's going on, guys? Welcome to another episode of Bro History. It's Henry Zimoda and Danny Abdel Jabar.
0:38.7	What's up, man? How are you? Dylan, man. That's per usual. How about yourself? I'm doing good. I'm tired, man. Can I ask you, if you look it, man? Can I ask you a question, though? Your shirt doesn't look tired. Why are you wearing a Hawaiian t-shirt? Because my son, through every single shirt that I have,
0:55.1	he just sweats like a machine.
0:57.3	So I just... T-shirt? Because my son, through every single shirt that I have, he just sweats like a
0:56.1	machine. So I just run out of clothing very quickly. I looked in my closet and I was like,
1:02.3	what collared shirt do I? I don't want to look like a complete slob on this, if we're recording this.
1:07.5	What presentable? What's the most presentable shirt that's not totally tainted that I have?
1:12.9	And it was, this is my only option, this Hawaiian shirt or I had to put in the button down, which I did not feel like doing.
1:18.3	I'm wearing this ridiculous thing for your court. I forget the line from my cousin, Finney. What's up, man? How are you?
1:27.0	Good, man. It's,'s uh we're coming up on uh
1:29.5	you know october actually it's it's october one today and it's pretty awesome it's my favorite
1:34.0	month it's my birthday month it's Halloween it's october fest it's all the coolest shit happens in
1:39.1	October in my opinion so it's a good month i'm not going to say i was was going to say something bad. Okay. Maybe we just jump right into the topic then. So I've been doing a lot of thinking just like American history. And what, obviously, there's a big question about immigration and like the future American character.
2:03.4	And I know you've been thinking about this as well with immigration and the demographics changing
2:10.2	in this country.
2:12.0	And no, America is about 60% white.
2:15.6	I don't know.
2:16.0	Maybe in 20 years it's not going to be white people are going to be a minority. And I'm not coming from this like from an angle where it's, oh, no, white genocide. I'm not coming from that. White replacement theory. I'm coming from it for more of just what does that mean for the country? Or like, where does that, like, how does that fit into
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