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enunciation of Woodrow Wilson's idea that institutionalizing national
self-determination would produce an ethnically homogeneous nation state
for each ethno-national group. This project was, as it turned out,
unrealizable, so that multi-national states appeared, especially in Eastern
Europe, each claiming a national identity. Such had already existed in
places like Belgium.
And less overtly in England and elsewhere? Yes. In Great Britain there
had long coexisted—uneasily—the four cultures of Albion.^ A European
resolution of this arose in the early days of the League of Nations with
the adoption of "minority treaties." Minority treaties were signed by
various states, each promising to protect the minorities in their territorial
domain. A few attempts were made to secure minority rights in
constitutions, and special legislation. And from that resolution of the
problem the word "minority" began to come into social scientific
prominence. It had not been a prominent term before that era. In
Europe, "minority" referred to groups that had not yet achieved and
were not likely to achieve national statehood and political independence.^
Soon, the term was transferred to America to refer to racial and ethnic
groups, but, with occasional exceptions to be noted, the conceptualization
in America was that the racial and ethnic groups would find a place
within the society and under its already established political jurisdiction.
Out of this development there arose two sociological theories about
ethnoracial groups in America, one dominant, the other subordinate.
The dominant approach, which had been presented as early as 1913
by Robert E. Park (1864-1944), and owed its origins to an even earlier
formulation by Sarah Simons,^ put forward what was in effect a promis-
sory note that assimilation would be the eventual outcome of the contact
of peoples and races in America. Moreover, Park beheved that assimila-
tion would be the eventual outcome of race contacts throughout the
world. That view became the prevalent perspective. It fit in with
Woodrow Wilson's assertion, for example, that in America there were to

^ David Hackett Fischer, Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1989).
^ J. A. Laponce, The Protection of Minorities, University of California
Publications in Political Science, 9 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1960).
^ Sarah Simons, "Social Assimilation," American Journal of Sociology 6.2 (May
1901), 808-815; 7.1 (July 1901), 53-79; 7.2 (September 1901), 234-248; 7.3
(November 1901), 386-404; 7.4 (January 1092), 539-556.