Brookings has issued an important study, The State of Metropolitan America. Among its many observations, one helps explain why we devote an entire chapter to citizenship:
In a country that recently elected its first African American president, it can be easy to forget that not so long ago, we were a considerably more racially and ethnically homogeneous society than we are today. In 1970, non-Hispanic whites accounted for roughly five in six Americans, a share that has dropped to less than four in six today. Immigrants that year were less than 5 percent of U.S. population; their share topped 12 percent in 2008. Today, our nation’s population is one-third non-white (including Hispanics), and those groups are projected to reach majority status by 2042.Immigration helps explain this transition toward a more racially and ethnically diverse society. In the 2000s, immigration accounted for roughly one-third of U.S. population growth. The majority of the remainder came from a natural increase of native-born racial and ethnic minorities. Nearly a quarter of all U.S. children in 2008 were the sons and daughters of at least one immigrant parent. This coming-of-age generation, a little over 30 years from now, is projected to stand on the precipice of our transition to a non-white majority nation
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