OPINION: The changing racial makeup

Posted in Articles, Census/Demographics, Media Archive, United States on 2015-10-14 01:10Z by Steven

OPINION: The changing racial makeup

Commerce News Today
Commerce, Georgia
2015-10-13

Cameron Whitlock, Reporter

The racial makeup of the United States is changing. That’s not an opinion, that’s a cold hard fact.

By 2050, racial minority groups will make up a majority of the U.S. population.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau and a study from the Pew Research Center, “white” Americans will have gone from 85 percent of the population in 1960, to 43 percent in 2060. Meanwhile, the number of black and Hispanic Americans will, make up a combined 45 percent of the population.

There are many contributing factors, the largest of which are immigration and the intermarriage of races. Until the middle of the 20th century, the American immigrant population largely consisted of white European expats. Nowadays, European immigration to the Americas sparse, while immigrants from Latin America make up over 50 percent of our naturalized citizens…

…I recall an ITBS (Iowa Test of Basic Skills) exam back in primary school. As with most standardized tests, the ITBS info sheet required you to pencil in your age, gender and race. The same still applies for most colleges, job applications and a number of other forms. But at what point do we categorize someone in a particular race? I vaguely remember the confusion felt by one of my Asian-American classmates when he was asked to pencil in his race. His mother was a Korean born immigrant, while his father was a white, natural-born American. He can’t check the “white” box, yet he doesn’t consider himself an “Asian, Pacific islander.” He’s certainly not “Native American” or “Black.” The only other option was just that – “other.” But what does that even mean? Now, such applications or forms typically list another option such as “mixed race.” But with such a vague destruction, is that information valuable in any way? …

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