Ethnicity & Immigration - Minorities Within Minorities: An Overview, Minorities: American Indians, Minorities: Asians, Minorities: Linguistic

We are many colors, speak in many tongues, and we come from all over the world. In this chapter we look at some of the indicators of our diversity. We look at our racial and ethnic makeup in somewhat more detail than we could do in Chapter 1, Who Are We? In a way, this chapter continues that theme.

In the first four panels we look at racial and linguistic minorities, beginning with an overview, Minorities within Minorities, in which we report on the ways in which the Bureau of the Census counts and classifies individuals. This produces some interesting findings not often noted when minorities are discussed. The next two panels examine two of the smaller racial groupings — American Indians and Asians. No specific focus is given to whites and African Americans — two groups about which the Census reports very extensively in any case —, as do we, in many of the panels. This section concludes with a look at the interesting subject of our many linguistic minorities.

The latter half of the 20th century saw the Civil Rights movement and legislation (and court decisions) aimed at making us live closer to one another. The data show that this just hasn't happened. The five panels in the middle of this chapter provide some interesting views of how the races in the U.S. live together. To do this, we look at two segregation measures and use them to examine the settlement patterns of African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, and American Indians. The data are ten years old but still "the latest" available — nor are patterns likely to have changed a great deal in the last ten to twelve years. These indicators show how we choose to live, or, perhaps, how some of us are forced to live. But no really hard conclusion can be drawn. At the level where we live, we live largely segregated lives.

We conclude the chapter by looking at the seesawing nature of immigration over time. We note that the foreign-born population is much more Latin or Asian in origin. We trace the history of changes in migration — and conclude with a look at illegal immigration, once more a hot topic after the events of 9/11.