Decline In U.S. Whites, Rise Of Latinos Blurring Traditional Racial LinesPosted in Articles, Barack Obama, Census/Demographics, Latino Studies, Media Archive, Politics/Public Policy, United States on 2013-03-19 17:59Z by Steven |
Decline In U.S. Whites, Rise Of Latinos Blurring Traditional Racial Lines
The Huffington Post
2013-03-17
Hope Yen
The Associated Press
Associated Press writers Elaine Ganley in Montfermeil, France, Jenny Barchfield in Rio de Janeiro and Michelle Rindels in Las Vegas contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON — Welcome to the new off-white America.
A historic decline in the number of U.S. whites and the fast growth of Latinos are blurring traditional black-white color lines, testing the limits of civil rights laws and reshaping political alliances as “whiteness” begins to lose its numerical dominance.
Long in coming, the demographic shift was most vividly illustrated in last November’s re-election of President Barack Obama, the first black president, despite a historically low percentage of white supporters.
It’s now a potent backdrop to the immigration issue being debated in Congress that could offer a path to citizenship for 11 million mostly Hispanic illegal immigrants. Also, the Supreme Court is deciding cases this term on affirmative action and voting rights that could redefine race and equality in the U.S.
The latest census data and polling from The Associated Press highlight the historic change in a nation in which non-Hispanic whites will lose their majority in the next generation, somewhere around the year 2043.
Despite being a nation of immigrants, America’s tip to a white minority has never occurred in its 237-year history and will be a first among the world’s major post-industrial societies. Brazil, a developing nation, has crossed the threshold to “majority-minority” status; a few cities in France and England are near, if not past that point.
The international experience and recent U.S. events point to an uncertain future for American race relations.
In Brazil, where multiracialism is celebrated, social mobility remains among the world’s lowest for blacks while wealth is concentrated among whites at the top. In France, race is not recorded on government census forms and people share a unified Gallic identity, yet high levels of racial discrimination persist.
“The American experience has always been a story of color. In the 20th century it was a story of the black-white line. In the 21st century we are moving into a new off-white moment,” says Marcelo Suarez-Orozco, a global expert on immigration and dean of UCLA’s Graduate School of Education & Information Studies.
“Numerically, the U.S. is being transformed. The question now is whether our institutions are being transformed,” he said…
Read the entire article here.