"We are all foreign-born or the descendants of foreign-born, and if distinctions are to be made between us they should rightly be on some other ground than indigenousness. The early colonists came over with motives no less colonial than the later. They did not come to be assimilated in an American melting-pot. They did not come to adopt the culture of the American Indian. They had not the smallest intention of "giving themselves without reservation" to the new country. They came to get freedom to live as they wanted. They came to escape from the stifling air and chaos of the old world; they came to make their fortune in a new land. They invented no new social framework. Rather they brought over bodily the old ways to which they had been accustomed."

In this paragraph, Bourne is explaining first and foremost that America is a land of immigrant.  As an American, we all have an ancestor who is not American "we are all foreign or the descendants of foreign born." Due to our parents or grandparents' immigration, we end up being Americans by birth. So, these immigrants decide to leave their homeland to seek another place. Some migrate to acquire freedom, others to escape poverty.  In other words, they did not come to America to embrace a new culture or  the American ways. Americans have to accept the wishes of the immigrants rather than trying to assimilate them and convince them to forgo their own culture. 

I found this paragraph important although written close to century ago, this idea of America being considered a "melting pot" is true in a way that anybody can come in this land and live freely, no question ask.  In another perspective, this term is becoming more and more abstract in a sense that one cannot say there is a such a thing we can call a "typical American". We do not enjoy the same thing, same food, what we consider right from wrong, what we considered as taboo...the list go on and on, BECAUSE WE COME FROM DIFFERENT BACKGROUNDS. I think this is what makes America unique, its originality that no other country can compare. Everyday we get to see different backgrounds and cultures, different ways of seeing things. We are more open-minded because of the diversity we encounter every single day.