This week, the results of a new study further confirms the inevitable: By 2050, due to a population increase of nearly 50 percent driven mainly by immigrants and their American-born children, there will be no majority population — all Americans will be minorities, according to projections by the Pew Research Center. The Asian population will roughly double in percentage terms, from five percent to nine percent.
The seeds of this change in the composition of the United States were planted long ago. American history is widely understood to be shaped and dominated by white Europeans, although Mexicans and Native Americans lived here long before, and the rest of us — African Americans, Asian Americans, white Americans — all arrived in America from somewhere else and helped build this country together. Asian Americans, in particular, have grown at a tremendous rate since the 1965 Immigration Act that brought many of us and our parents here — from under 1 million in 1960 to 15 million today, a more than tenfold increase. This change has been a long time coming.
The entire population of America is changing, and along with it is a shifting economy. Today the minority communities of America are making up the backbone of our nation’s economy — not just in labor force, but also in economic opportunity. Collectively, the buying power of Asian Americans, Latino Americans and African Americans is over $2 trillion dollars. The buying power of Asian Americans alone is $427 billion, larger than the GDP of Belgium — and it’s growing three times faster than the rate of the general population.
San Francisco already has no majority population. Everybody is already a minority in San Francisco. Those demographics can make for some complications, especially when each group thinks that they are in charge, but the community and the economy are thriving. With diversity comes new ideas and energy. Neighborhoods and big businesses are both growing.
And diversity is something we, Asian Americans, know all about. Diversity defines our community; there is no one language or tradition that unites all the disparate ethnicities that are joined under the term “Asian American.” We have been exploring the concept of diversity for decades. It has been an integral part of our community’s coming-of-age and our search for an identity. It is now America’s turn to explore a new identity.