Who turned the burners off on the MELTING POT?

Late in the '70s early '80s the 'Melting Pot' was turned off in favor of the 'Salad Bowl'. The idea was that we as a nation were going to celebrate the diversity in our culture by retaining the cultural distinctiveness of our individual race, creed or national origins. A new kinder, gentler mixing together of ideas and concepts like in a salad in a bowl: each fruit and vegetable is together in peace and harmony but retaining its individual flavor. The old melting pot was used to force or coerce people into discarding all of that touchy feely crap and submerge their individual distinctiveness into a collective whole known as 'American'. We'll see who it turns out.....