The Emerging Majority: Resources for Nonwhite Families in the United States

Abstract

The nonwhite family as a concern of family life educators has enjoyed a renaissance in the last twenty years, partly as a result of this nation's increasing awareness of the growing number of nonwhite citizens in the United States. In addition to the above factor the augmentation of trade and cultural contacts with nonwhite nations has led to the need for objective studies of nonwhite peoples, including their family life. This artic/e briefly reviews the history and characteristics of four nonwhite groups: American Indians, Asians, Black Americans and Latinos. The important books, articles, periodicals, and organizations are described and listed, with an emphasis on those most relevant to the family educator and practitioner. In attempting to locate and describe resources for understanding racial and ethnic families it is necessary to begin by defining and classifying the groups to be included in that category. The term minority would appear to be a misnomer since it generally applies only to groups physically distinctive from the Euro-American majority in the United States. Black Americans, for instance, are not regarded as a solely due to their numbers but are differentiated from white ethnic groups based on physical traits such as skin color and hair texture. No serious student of race and ethnicity would suggest that the status of blacks can be legitimately compared to that of white American ethnic groups (e.g., Jews, Italians, Irish) (Mindel & Habenstein, 1988). Yet, a larger number of Black Americans can identify their ancestry to Africa than any white group can identify their ancestry with a single country except Germans (Hacker, 1983). Obviously, the concept of is based on much broader phenomenon than the relative size in the population. Ethnicity, for example, refers to a national identity and distinctive culture and language whereas minority status connotes a history of discrimination, social stratif ication, and phenotypic characteristics (Wilkinson & King, 1987). The last 50 years have witnessed such changes in international migration, booming fertility rates, and volatile economic systems that would bring into question the use of national borders to define a group as a minority. The geopolitical changes of the last century have resulted in the decline of population in the largely white nations from 300/0 of the world's population to 15% in 1985. Thus, the groups that North America defines as minorities constitute about 85% of the world's population and the number is rising. In almost every predominantly white nation, Marxist, socialist, and capitalist, the downturn in fertility rates has resulted in zero population growth while 90% of population growth has occurred in nonwhite societies (Carlson, 1986). Of greater significance, with significant policy implications, is the fact that immigration patterns and fertility rates will irreducibly alter the racial composition of the largely white nations. Demographic projections are that the 10 most populous countries in the year 2100 will have a majority of nonwhite population, including the Soviet Union and the United States. By the year 2080, if current immigration and birthrate trends hold up, slightly less than half of all Americans will be non-Hispanic whites.