Within twelve months, California will become the second US state to have a white minority. Although whites will still make up the largest racial group, their percentage of the total population will be less than 50%. Hawaii already has an Asian and Polynesian majority.

Current estimates have whites becoming an American minority around 2070. This doesn't really mean that all of America will be racially diverse; instead, it means we will have states such as California, Texas, and Florida with huge Hispanic majorities, while some midwestern states retain white majorities of greater than 90%. I suspect Illinois and New York will be the most "mixed" states.

Interestingly enough, two states have had white minorities in the past. South Carolina had a black majority before the Civil War, and New Mexico's Native Americans and Hispanics have made whites a minority at times.

Some talking heads will surely say that this represents the arrival of a divided America with two very different mainstream cultures. As someone who has spent a lot of time hanging out in both racially mixed ghettoes and rich white suburbia, I'd say that America already has almost as many cultures as it does people. To the idea of the white minority, I say, "So what?" Why is the government even counting the color of our skin?

Since 2000, a lot has changed. But not as much as you might think. America currently has only one state -- Hawaii -- that does not, and has never had, a white majority. This is mostly because 'white' is a slippery concept, and a lot of the swarthy folks that were upsetting the racial purists 17 years ago are now white... falling into the comparatively new demographic category of white hispanic.

So yes, America remains blandly white, but we have continued to upgrade our diversity regardless, and there are now five states that have a "majority-minority" -- a state "in which one or more racial and/or ethnic minorities make up a majority of the local population." (Wikipedia).

  • Hawaii: the only state to never have had a white majority.
  • California: Still majority white, but only 40% Non-Hispanic white.
  • New Mexico: Still majority white, but only 40% Non-Hispanic white.
  • Nevada: Still majority white, but only 41% Non-Hispanic white.
  • Texas: Still majority white, but only 45% Non-Hispanic white.

Maybe. Changing the definition of white to optionally include/exclude arbitrary ethnicities messed things up. For example, New York might count as majority–minority, if you count the Jewish population as an ethnic minority rather than as part of the 'ethnically white' majority. Do you want to do this? I have no clue. But you could, if you were seriously hung up on race and ethnicity.

The upshot of this is that, despite 20 years 200,000 years of people complaining about the outsiders coming in to ruin our lives, most strangers are nice, and things will be okay.

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