Diversity Explosion: How New Racial Demographics are Remaking America

Front Cover
Brookings Institution Press, Jul 24, 2018 - Social Science - 320 pages

Greater racial diversity is good news for America's future

Race is once again a contentious topic in America, as shown by the divisive rise of Donald Trump and the activism of groups like Black Lives Matter. Yet Diversity Explosion argues that the current period of profound racial change will lead to a less-divided nation than today's older whites or younger minorities fear. Prominent demographer William Frey sees America's emerging diversity boom as good news for a country that would otherwise face declining growth and rapid aging for many years to come.

In the new edition of this popular Brookings Press offering, Frey draws from the lessons of the 2016 presidential election and new statistics to paint an illuminating picture of where America's racial demography is headed—and what that means for the nation's future.

Using the U.S. Census, national surveys, and related sources, Frey tells how the rapidly growing "new minorities"—Hispanics, Asians, and multiracial Americans—along with blacks and other groups, are transforming and reinvigorating the nation's demographic landscape. He discusses their impact on generational change, regional shifts of major racial groups, neighborhood segregation, interracial marriage, and presidential politics.

Diversity Explosion is an accessible, richly illustrated overview of how unprecedented racial change is remaking the United States once again. It is an essential guide for political strategists, marketers, investors, educators, policymakers, and anyone who wants to understand the magnitude, potential, and promise of the new national melting pot in the twenty-first century.

Other editions - View all

About the author (2018)

William H. Frey is a senior fellow with the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution and Research Professor in Population Studies at the University of Michigan. Frey is an internationally regarded demographer with expertise in U.S. demographics and American political demographics whose work has been written about in the Economist, the New Yorker, and New York Times Magazine. He is also a frequent commentator on broadcast media.

Bibliographic information