On Americanism: Envisioning a Post-Minority Country

The seven million Americans -- half of whom are under eighteen years of age -- who were listed by the Census Bureau this year as coming from "multiple racial backgrounds" herald the beginning of the end of multiculturalism in the United States.

Multiculturalism, the ideology that promotes the permanent coexistence of separate but equal cultures, gained currency a generation ago. On the one hand, it was a necessary corrective that encouraged Americans to acknowledge non-European contributions to the nation's cultural heritage. On the other, it has become a remedial lens through which to envision the emergence of America's racially mixed future.

The Census Bureau's official recognition of hybridity has not only muddled the statistical portrait of the nation, it has also undermined the popular belief that race and culture can be reduced to permanent and mutually exclusive categories. Racial data in the United States now resembles religion statistics in Japan, where 220 million souls are counted as members of various faiths even though there are 124 million people in the country.

Given that multiracial Americans tend to be young, demographers expect their ranks to grow quickly over the next few decades. One hundred years from now, single-ancestry Americans will still predominate, but contemporary ethnic and racial categories will have much less meaning.

America's first family portrait of the twenty-first century is forcing us to reenvision our nation as a melting pot. No, not the old tin pan that once restricted the entry of nonwhites, but a generous cauldron that mixes races as well as ethnicities.