MPRC Presents Richard Alba

'The Great Demographic Illusion: Majority, Minority, and the Expanding American Mainstream'

"The Great Demographic Illusion:  Majority, Minority, and the Expanding American Mainstream"

About the Presentation

The focus of discussions of the American demographic future is typically on the majority-minority society projected to occur by mid-century. This focus has unfortunately obscured one of the most important developments of the early 21st century—the rapidly rising ethno-racial mixing in families and the consequent surge of young people with one majority and one minority parent. This development has potentially huge implications for the ethno-racial configurations of the near future. For the research record, both quantitative and qualitative, shows that, with the critical exception of individuals with black and white parentage, most mixed majority-minority Americans are participating in the mainstream, as evidenced by their high level of integration into social milieus with many whites and their frequent marriage with them. Ethno-racial mixing illuminates a narrative very different from the majority-minority one: namely, an expansion and diversification of the societal mainstream consistent in key ways with the American history of immigrant-group assimilation.

About the Speaker

Richard Alba is Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.  His research has focused throughout his career on the long-run impacts of immigration, including those on the receiving society as well as those on the immigrants and their descendants.  His most recent book, co-authored with Nancy Foner, is Strangers No More:  Immigration and the Challenges of Integration in North America and Western Europe (Princeton University Press, 2015).

For more information, contact Jennifer Doiron at 301-405-6403 or jdoiron1@umd.edu.