Cultural Diversity

Sacramento has long been known as one of the most well-balanced and diverse cities in the country—with Time Magazine making it official in 2002—and that is a very good thing for a city, and very good for those of us lucky enough to live here.

What this means for the nonprofit world has been long studied and most recently written about by a local nonprofit leader, Janice Gow Pettey, in—among other works on the subject—her recent book Cultivating Diversity in Fundraising.

Underlying much of the success of our country over the past several decades and stretching far into the future, is this same diversity, which continues to build upon the historic vision of the solidarity of America, always welcoming everyone.

From that welcome, great power is growing, and Joel Kotkin at New Geography writes about this.

An excerpt.

“When Americans think of our nation's power (or our imminent lack of it) we tend to point to the national debts, GDP or military prowess. Few have focused on what may well be the country's most historically significant and powerful weapon: its emergence as the modern world's first multiracial superpower.

“This evolution, after centuries of racial wrangling and struggle, will prove particularly critical in a world in which the power of the "white" race will likely diminish as power shifts to China, India and other developing countries. By 2039, due largely to immigrants and their offspring, non-Europeans will constitute the majority of working-age Americans, and by around 2050 non-Hispanic whites could well be in the minority.

“But this should not be seen so much as a matter of ethnic succession as multiracial amalgamation. The group likely to grow fastest, for example, will be made up of people, like President Obama himself, who are of mixed race. Theirs is no more demonstrable evidence of the changing racial attitudes of Americans. As recently as 1987 slightly less than half of Americans approved of interracial couples. By 2007, according to the Pew Center, 83% supported them. Among the millennial generation, who will make up the majority of adults in 2050, 94% approve of such matches.

“Today roughly 20% of Americans, according to Pew Research Center, say they have a relative married to someone of another race. Mixed-race couples tend to be younger; over two-fifths of mixed-race Americans are under 18 years of age. In the coming decades this group will play an ever greater role in society. According to sociologists at UC, Irvine, by 2050 mixed-race people could account for one in five Americans.

“The result will be a U.S. best described in Walt Whitman's prophetic phrase as "the race of races." No other advanced, populous country will enjoy such ethnic diversity.”