Eth 125 Week 9 Final

Throughout the history of the United States there has been great divide amongst the diverse inhabitants of the country. From the earliest days predating the country’s formation with wars against Native Americans and the Spanish to the enslavement and ownership of blacks the citizens have been divided. For a country founded with the ideals of equality “for all Mankind,” we have taken an extremely slow road in truly making serious attempts to making the idea a reality. Simply examining my own ethnic background throughout this course has given me a much greater insight into how divided our society has been. For example, until this course I did not realize that certain ethnic groups that are considered white today were not always so, such as Irish Americans and Italian Americans. While I find it comforting that the white racial population has melded within itself well over the many decades, it is disheartening that we, as a society and as a people in general, continue to not see every human as another human but instead see each other based on our heritage, gender, religion, etcetera.

Immigration trends help shape the population demographic in several ways. Among these ways that immigration shapes the demographic diversity landscape is in what racial and ethnic groups are immigrating, the age range of those that immigrate, and the estimations on the reproduction that these groups produce. Some minority groups have higher fertility rates, particularly Hispanics (Broughton, 2013). According to Passel (2014), “The nation’s elderly population will more than double in size from 2005 through 2050 as the baby boom generation enters the traditional retirement years. The number of working-age Americans and children will grow more slowly than the elderly population, and will shrink as a share of the total population. The U.S. Census Bureau anticipates that the total population over the country will reach between 400 and 460 million depending on net immigration, and the Hispanic...