California Foreshadows Nation's Change

Recent years when we celebrate our various national holidays such as Memorial Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving Day,  I've often reflected on our nation's changes, especially those occurring during my lifetime.  This country has experienced numerous domestic challenges including some associated with  demographic changes.  Now we are encountering one of the most profound in our nation's history which is slowly expanding.   California officially became the third state following Hawaii and New Mexico where another ethnicity has surpassed Caucasians as a majority, U.S. census records reveal.       

Latinos are now the majority ethnicity group in the State of California.  Whites became a minority in the Los Angeles area just a few years ago when our population changed to the degree that no clear majority group existed among whites, African-Americans and Latinos.  Now Latinos have emerged as California's new majority ethnic group.     

I am a member of an ethnic minority for the first time in my life as there are now more Latinos than whites in California.    A population ethnic change is a trend across our nation.   Some may wonder what, if any, implications this may have for our lives?   I offer my experience as reassurance that this ethnic change has been a gradual, though increasingly rapid evolution, which has been non-disruptive in my life.   This California white person's life continues much as usual, but is enriched.   I have never expected it to be otherwise.  Perhaps how we think about such changes has some influence on their outcome.   I can only hope residents in the rest of the nation where such change occurs adapt as well in the years ahead.

We live in an ever-expanding world as are many nations composed of increasing multiple ethnic groups with varying beliefs and languages.  Newcomers to our United States generally learn our American English language.   We native English speakers by honing our skills in other languages can only benefit us all.   In this digital social media world I read recently about needing to learn even another specialty language, too -- how to write some computer programming code language -- as this is becoming an expected skill needed in the future by all, but that's another topic for a future discussion.

In the years to come, though maybe not in my lifetime, there are going to be other categories in addition to ethnicity, such as religion, where a once considered minority group in this nation may increase in numbers greater than the majority group we've known throughout our lifetime, even since the beginning of our nation's history.

We can only strive to see that any type of new majority groups will be more understanding, accepting, compassionate, tolerant, and fair to existing minority groups than some, once in the majority, have been since the founding of our great nation.    In the meantime, we would be wise to put our best foot forward, as the saying goes, toward how we treat others in order to reflect favorably on our minority group.  I'm sure we will want others to treat us well.-- perhaps better than some of us have treated them.

I think we need to think carefully about these matters when we consider who we would want as the next President of our country and representing us around the world.