Why the number of young Americans from mixed families is surging and what this means for the country-s future
Americans are under the spell of a distorted and polarizing story about their country-s future-the majority-minority narrative-which contends that inevitable demographic changes will create a society with a majority made up of minorities for the first time in the United States-s history. The Great Demographic Illusion reveals that this narrative obscures a more transformative development: the rising numbers of young Americans from ethno-racially mixed families, consisting of one white and one nonwhite parent. Examining the unprecedented significance of mixed parentage in the twenty-first-century United States, Richard Alba looks at how young Americans with this background will play pivotal roles in the country-s demographic future.
Assembling a vast body of evidence, Alba explores where individuals of mixed parentage fit in American society. Most
