Diversity Explosion

This assignment details recent demographic changes in the United States.

This assignment also includes a contemporary reading that underscores a point made by many of our authors, including Arjun Appadurai: globalization poses radical challenges to the self-identities of both groups and individuals, even those who stay at “home.”

Objectives

After completing this assignment, students should be able to

• Define cultural hegemony, and explain its importance to understanding the “fear of losing privileged status” that Frey mentions (1)
• Identify and explain the trends illustrated in each of Frey’s charts.
• Summarize the meanings of “Melting Pot,” “New Sun Belt,” and “Heartland”
• Identify the meaning of “diversity is spreading upward” (12-13)
• Identify the meaning of “diversity is spreading outward” (12-13)
• Identify the different political goals of whites and “minorities” in coming decades
• Identify the ways that these trends are impacting Georgia and the surrounding states
• Summarize the differences in most common and median ages of different racial/ethnic groups shown in the Pew Research article
• Summarize the post-1965 changes discussed by the Smithsonian Magazine article
• Summarize the impact of these changes on the meanings of “African American”

Reading

• Frey, Diversity Explosion, chapter 1
• Berlin, The Changing Definition of African-American (smithsonianmag.com)
• Gao, Biggest Share of Whites in U.S. are Boomers, but for Minority Groups It’s Millennials or Younger (pewresearch.org)

Quiz

• Diversity Explosion