The salad bowl concept suggests that the integration of the many different cultures of United States residents combine like a salad, as opposed to the more traditional notion of a cultural melting pot.[1] In Canada this concept is more commonly known as the cultural mosaic. In the salad bowl model, various American cultures are juxtaposed — like salad ingredients — but do not merge into a single homogeneous culture. Each culture keeps its own distinct qualities. This idea proposes a society of many individual, "pure" cultures, and the term has become more politically correct than melting pot, since the latter suggests that ethnic groups may be unable to preserve their cultures due to assimilation.
Some have compared the European concept of multiculturalism (multikulti) to a salad bowl approach, which prevents the full integration of immigrant groups into host societies, whereas the traditional American approach of the melting pot results in successful integration of successive immigrant waves into the larger American society.
In Singapore, the phrase "rojak society" is sometimes heard, alluding to the tri-cultural past and present of Singapore. "Rojak" is a Malay word meaning mixture and is also used in the names of various Singaporean salads.