Present-day migration patterns

Today's migration will carry the new minorities (Asian and Hispanic) into labour markets

in communities such as Salt Lake City, Minneapolis, Oklahoma City and Colorado Springs. As a result, these changes of direction within "multiple melting pots," these new immigrant destinations, no doubt will shape the nature of both local and national race

relations in the decades ahead. It is projected that by 2050, 21 per cent of the US population will be of mixed racial

or ethnic ancestry, up from an estimate of 7 per cent today. Among third-generation Hispanic and Asian-Americans, exogamy - marriage outside one's ethnic group or tribe — is at east 50 per cent. Exogamy remains much less prevalent among African

Americans has increased enormously, from about 1.5 percent in the 1960s to eight to ten per cent today.

Such demographic shift was able to take place while no one was watching because, officially, no one was watching. Federal agencies traditionally collected racial data using

a formula - one person, one race — similar to the time-honoured voting principle. Thus, the Census Bureau could estimate that on census forms no more than 2 per cent of the population would claim to be multiracial. In the absence of a more straightforward count, no one could knew for sure what the demographics were.

For the 2000 census, the US Government had a better idea. It followed a directive allowing people to check as many racial boxes as they applied to them. The shift was a

compromise between the demands of some interest groups that wanted the addition of a "multiracial" box, and those that objected to any change, fearing dilution of their numbers.

Discuss the reasons, development and consequences of the War of Independence (1775-1783).