Demography of Race and Ethnicity

Abstract

One of the most permanent features of many societies, especially the United States, is racial and ethnic stratification. Many immigrant groups have been integrated into the different dimensions of American life, while others have remained relatively marginalized. The road toward inclusion is particularly difficult for groups that initially gained entrance to the United States through involuntary means (e.g., warfare and conquest) and for those with more pronounced racial and cultural distinctions compared to the dominant group (McLemore and Romo 1998). Such patterns set apart the experiences of African Americans, American Indians, Mexican Americans, and Puerto Ricans, groups that have been labeled as ‘‘colonized groups’’ due to the aggression surrounding their initial incorporation into the United States, their racial and cultural distinctions, and their long-term location on the lower rungs of the American social and economic hierarchy. The unique experience of these and other minority groups has major implications for the United States population. Race and ethnicity are important dimensions in understanding the demography of the United States, for racial and ethnic groups vary tremendously with respect to population composition, population processes, as well as their life chances and access to opportunity structures. Referring to the social world of African Americans, Weeks (2002:411) notes that ‘‘being of black-African origin in the United States is associated with higher probabilities of death, lower levels of education, lower levels of occupational status, lower incomes, and higher levels of marital disruption than for the non-Hispanic white population.’’ The inequality of groups in American society along racial and ethnic lines has important implications for the future of the United States because of the major demographic transformations already underway in this country. Of the 75.8 million inhabitants that the United States is projected to add to