New America in California: Latest Articles

For more than two decades, a mural on the wall of a public housing project in East Los Angeles has been exhorting the neighborhood's mostly Mexican-American residents to stop thinking of themselves as members of a minority group. "We are NOT a minority!" the image of a finger-wagging revolutionary declares.

After a generation of mass migration, this slogan is becoming a statistical reality in Los Angeles and other areas across the Southwest. Last week, the Census Bureau announced there are more… more

One sunny day in June of 1979, President Jimmy Carter installed solar water heaters on the roof of the White House. This symbolic act would mark the height of a mini-boom in solar energy in the U.S. It was accompanied by the creation of the Solar Energy Research Institute (now the National Renewable Energy Laboratory), the introduction of incentives and subsidies for renewable energy, and a major call for energy independence -- what Carter called "the moral equivalent of war."… more

There is always something new out of California. Watch out for an initiative on the state ballot in March 2002 that will take the first step towards barring the identification of Americans by race. It could overturn, in time, the whole apparatus by which government delivers social policy. It could mark the start of the end of "hyphenated Americans": those who call themselves African-American, native-American, Chinese-American and so on. A new generation is arriving that may spurn the definitions their… more

While visiting Ellis Island at the turn of the 20th century, Henry James wondered how the sweeping tide of immigrants would ultimately affect… more

In June, President Bill Clinton ventured onto George W. Bush's Texas turf in the hopes of cutting into the governor's Latino support. He appealed to Mexican American … more