PERSONAL REFLECTIONS ON AMERICA

AS THE FIRST GLOBAL SOCIETY

by David Rusk

 

In April 2007, I walked into Charles Barrett Elementary School for the first time in 55 years.   I entered a school and an America that was very different – and much better – thant the America I grew up in.

 

From 1946 to 1952, my family lived in Alexandria, Virginia, across the Potomac River from the nation’s capital.   We lived in a sprawling complex of 284 two- and three-story garden apartments called Parkfairfax.   Constructed in 1941-43, Parkfairfax was built to house the crush of young government and military families, then busily launching the Baby Boom of the post-World War II era.[1]   In that pre-Civil Rights Revolution era, Parkfairfax was rigorously segregated.   No Negros (nor Jews) allowed.

 

My classmates were all white.   I cannot even recall any Asian or Hispanic classmates.   Alexandria had plenty of Negro children, but I never saw them.   They attended totally “separate but equal” schools (that were only hypothetically equal).[2]   Almost all the illustrations in my textbooks were of white people.   Our history lessons focused largely on our colonial British heritage, with a nod to the late 19th - early 20th century waves of European immigrants that blended into the American “melting pot.”    My only recollection of a multi-cultural lesson was listening to, and drawing posters illustrating, Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg’s “Pier Gynt Suite.”

 

Every year (despite the constitutional separation of church and state) my public elementary school held elaborate Christmas programs, featuring traditional Christmas carols and re-enactment of the Nativity scene.   On February 22, we celebrated George Washington’s birthday but did not observe Abraham Lincoln’s birthday on February 12.   In Virginia, school children celebrated the birthday of Civil War General Robert E. Lee, patron saint of the Confederacy.

 

Fifty-five years later, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday had replaced Robert E. Lee’s.   The principal (headmistress), an African American woman, arranged a tour of my old school.   The classrooms were a kaleidoscope of children of different origins.   Twenty percent were black (about two-thirds native-born African Americans, the remainder recent African and West Indian immigrants).   Another 16 percent were Hispanic (with the largest group from El Salvador).   Over five percent were Asian.   Just 59 percent were white, including a number of children of recent Eastern European immigrants.   (Almost 28 percent of Alexandria City Public Schools’ 10,334 students are enrolled in English as a Second Language classes; 80 different languages are spoken in their homes.)

 

All textbooks were multi-cultural.   A 3rd grade reader opened with the question “How can our traditions and the traditions of others make our lives more interesting?”   What followed included stories by authors from Tanzanian, Chinese, Russian, Italian, Indian, Mexican, Japanese, and African American background.   A history of Charles A. Lindburgh’s historic trans-Atlantic flight was accompanied by the story of Bessie Coleman, the first African American woman aviator.

 

And, as a result of several United States Supreme Court decisions, reaffirming “a wall of separation between Church and State,” prayers (even carefully non-sectarian ones) and, of course, Christmas pageants had disappeared from public schools – much to the anguish of many Protestant religious conservatives.

 

I have contrasted my public elementary school 55 years ago and today to illustrate a central theme:   within my own lifetime, the United States of America has become perhaps the world’s most racially, ethnically, and religiously diverse society.[3]

 

The focus of Permacity has been on mankind’s ability to live in an acceptable ecological balance with nature.   Despite global warming – to which the American economy has been the greatest man-made contributor – in my view, however, the most calamitous threat to human well-being is often our inability to live with each other.  

 

Despite great injustices and inequities throughout our history, in the larger view, America has been a very successful experiment in building a multi-cultural society.   The enduring framework for that success was carefully constructed by the Founding Fathers – most importantly, as expressed by our Declaration of Independence and through our national constitution and its Bill of Rights.

 

Within my own lifetime, I believe that what it means to “be an American” – our definition of our nationality – has become almost completely detached from our largely British origins.   To be a good American today is to embrace a set of values and institutions – whatever one’s “race,” national origin, or religious beliefs.   Such a unifying framework eludes many other societies throughout the world, including European nations, struggling with the challenges of two types of integration – the one, of incorporating their traditional nation states into the European Union, and the second, of incorporating immigrant populations of distinctly different ethnic and religious backgrounds into their national societies.   There are lessons to be learned from the American experience.

[765 words]

Racial Diversity

 

The concept of “race” has no basis in science (though false science has often been invoked to justify society’s prejudices).   As a political and social construct, however, “race” has played a powerful role in the human affairs of men, particularly in the modern Western World and with tragic results in the United States of America.

 

America was a racially diverse population from our inception as an independent nation because of our large population of African origin (which was carefully enumerated for determining voting representation … by white men) and a rapidly dwindling population of American Indians (not counted at all).   Our first national census in 1790 characterized the population of the original 13 states, two soon-to-be states (Kentucky and Maine) and the Southwest Territory[4] as:


Table 1:   Population of the United States in the Census of 1790

 

Free whites males of sixteen years & upwards including

            heads of families                                                                            813,365

Free white males under sixteen years                                                     802,127

Free white females including heads of families                                   1,556,628

All other free persons                                                                                   59,511

Slaves                                                                                                          697,697

                 Total                                                                                         3,929,326           

 

Since all slaves and most “all other free persons” were of African origin, at our national birth, the American population was 81 percent white and 19 percent black.

 

Two centuries later, our national census had come to recognize the diversity that had always been present (“American Indian”), had been purchased (“Alaska Native”), or had been conquered (“Native Hawaiian,” “Hispanic or Latino”).   The Census Bureau reported our national profile in 2005 as:

 

Table 2:   US Population by Racial Groups in 2005

 

gGroup                                                                               nNumber        pPercent

 

White alone                                                                 192,615,561                66.8           

Black or African American alone                                34,364,572                11.9

American Indian and Alaska Native alone                   2,046,735                   0.7

Asian alone                                                                    12,312,949                   4.3

Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander alone          355,513                   0.1

Some other race alone                                                      777,679                   0.2

Two or more races                                                          4,034,425                   1.5

Hispanic or Latino[5]                                                       41,870,703                14.5

            Total                                                                 288,378,137              100.0

 

By about 2043, when our population will have topped 400 million, we will cease to have any majority group whatsoever.   Our country will be about 49 percent “Anglo,[6]” 28 percent Hispanic, 11.5 percent Black or African American, 9 percent Asian, 0.5 percent American Indian, and 2 percent “two or more races” – if racial classifications have any meaning by that time at all.

[258 words]

Ethnic Diversity

 

In 1790, our national population was primarily British (English, Scotch, and Scotch Irish[7]) with a substantial German population[8] and smatterings of Dutch, Swedes, Danes, and French as well.   Though sparsely populated, Spanish territory bordered the young country.   Our largest minority, African Americans (over 90 percent in slavery), had been stripped of homeland identity, while our true Native American population was continually decimated by European-type diseases (against which they had no natural immunity) and ever pushed off their land by white invaders.

 

By 2005, through waves of immigration over two centuries, America had an extraordinarily diverse population in terms of the national origin of its population, as shown by Table 3, which lists all 40 nationality groups with 1,000,000 or more representatives within the American population.

 

To the surprise (I’m sure) of many, within a nation often seen as British/English, Germans (50,131,869) form the largest single nationality group; indeed, German-Americans are equivalent to 75 percent of all ethnic Germans in Germany.[9]  

The second largest nationality group is Mexicans (37,751,488), though the total may be swelled by considerable statistical overlap between citizens claiming Mexican ancestry and those born in Mexico.   The Mexican population ranges far beyond the Border States (California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas).   With 564,853 Mexican-origin residents, Chicago, for example, was 21 percent Mexican in 2005.[10] 

 

Our third largest nationality group is the Irish (34,797,488) – in fact, there are eight times as many Irish in America as there are in Ireland!   (For that matter, there are as many Scots (5,932,595), Norwegians (4,601,154), and Puerto Ricans (3,781,317) in America as there are in the Old Country.)   African Americans (34,364,572), stripped by slavery of homeland roots, are the fourth largest group before we come to the English (29,418,012) in fifth place – not quite 10 percent of our population.[11]

 

Other nationalities whose descendents or recent emigrants represent at least one-fifth of the home country’s current population are the Italians, Poles, Swedes, Cubans, Salvadorans, Czechs, Jamaicans, Danes, Guatemalans, Slovaks, and (not shown on table 3) Lithuanians, Guyanese, Trinidadeans & Tobogans, Barbadeans, and Dutch Antilleans.   With our population of over 300 million, undoubtedly every nationality is represented within our country today with the possible exception of Pitcairn Island (50 residents), the world’s smallest country.[12]

 

Table 3: National Origin of US Population in 2005

(over 1,000,000: ancestry claimed and foreign born combined)

 

                                                           tTotal in USA pPct hHomeland

nNationality gGroup                       pPopulation       pPopulation

 

Germans                                                   50,131,869                 61%

Mexicans                                                   37,751,488                 37%

Irish                                                           34,797,488               822%

African Americans                                    34,364,572                    na

English                                                      29,418,012                 58%

Italians                                                       17,635,313                 30%

Poles                                                         10,230,886                 27%

French (except Basque)                             9,695,897                 15%

Scots                                                           5,932,595               114%

Scotch-Irish (Northern Ireland)                   5,403,479               307%

Dutch                                                          5,165,163                 32%

Norwegians                                                 4,601,154                 97%

Swedes                                                       4,259,792                 47%

Chinese (except Taiwanese)                      4,213,143                 <1%

Filipinos                                                       3,876,293                   4%

Canadians (including French-Canadians)  3,799,327                 12%

Puerto Ricans                                             3,781,317                 95%

Asian Indians                                               3,741,714                 <1%

Russians                                                     3,401,216                   2%

Vietnamese                                                 2,484,419                   3%

Cubans                                                       2,357,435                 21%

South Koreans                                            2,229,058                   5%

Salvadorans                                                2,227,139                 33%

American Indians and Alaskan  Natives     2,046,735                    na

Czechs                                                       2,045,966                 20%

Welsh                                                          2,042,201                 69%

Dominicans                                                 1,819,110                 19%

Hungarians                                                  1,602,703                 16%

Portuguese                                                 1,572,549                 15%

Greeks                                                        1,442,452                 13%

Jamaicans                                                  1,435,258                 53%

Danes                                                         1,434,060                 26%

Guatemalans                                              1,384,550                 26%

Ukrainians                                                   1,288,792                   3%

Columbians                                                 1,286,917                   3%

Japanese                                                    1,183,615                   1%

Haitians                                                       1,170,848                 12%

Spaniards                                                    1,160,894                   3%

Slovaks                                                       1,063,934                 20%

Swiss                                                          1,017,277                 14%

 

 

are the fourth largest group before we come to the English (29,418,012) in fifth place – not quite 10 percent of our population.[13]

Other nationalities whose descendents or recent emigrants represent at least one-fifth of the home country’s current population are the Italians, Poles, Swedes, Cubans, Salvadorans, Czechs, Jamaicans, Danes, Guatemalans, Slovaks, and (not shown on table 3) Lithuanians, Guyanese, Trinidadeans & Tobogans, Barbadeans, and Dutch Antilleans.   With our population of over 300 million, undoubtedly every nationality is represented within our country today with the possible exception of Pitcairn Island (50 residents), the world’s smallest country.[14] [370 words]

Religious Diversity

 

Our Census Bureau does not collect data on religious affiliation.[15]   Only information is collected by the census that is justified by the need to administer some public policy or program, beginning with the original need to conduct a national census to apportion seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.   Table 4 presents the best private survey of religious affiliation in the United States.

 

On the face of it, America is a highly Christian society and, based on weekly church attendance, probably the most church-going in the Western World.   However, as we shall see later, the United States of America is not a Christian nation.

 

A few thoughts about two major religious groups: Islam and Judaism.   Estimates regarding numbers of Muslims in the United States vary widely.   Table 4 places the number of Muslims at 1.1 million in 2001, but in 1999, the American Muslim Council placed the number at 6.5 million.   After the events of September 11, 2001, many newspaper accounts included an estimate of 8 million American Muslims. This would equate to 2.6 percent of the U.S. population, or roughly 1 in every 40 people in the country. No comparable figure has ever been confirmed by independent research.