For most Americans, California evokes coastal images, the sunny beaches of south or the spectacular urban vistas of San Francisco Bay. Yet within California itself, the state's focus is shifting increasingly beyond the narrow strip of land between the coast- line and its first line of mountain ranges.
The idea of America as an ethnic “melting pot” gained currency at the turn of the 20th century, amid an unprecedented wave of European immigrants to the United States. At the turn of the 21st century, the melting pot ideal persists, but encompasses a more racially and ethnically diverse group of Americans, both native and foreign born. In particular, the higher growth rates of the nation's minority populations versus its white population animate this distinctly American concept.
Topic:
Civil Society, Demographics, Development, and Migration