Congress Cataloging - in - Publication Data

Short sections of text, not to exceed three paragraphs, may be quoted without written permission provided that full attribution is given to the source and the above copyright notice is included. iii Foreword At some time in the early part of this century, no racial or ethnic group will make up a majority of California's population. Demographers describe this state of affairs with all the wonderment of astronomers exploring the outer reaches of the universe. Other social scientists, politicians, and planners are more sobered by it. What does this mean for California, the Golden Dream, and life at the neighborhood level? What do we know about how people will get along? Will there be harmony, or will racial or ethnic tensions threaten California's governance, let alone the smooth running of day-today community life? However we imagine this majority minority status and the changes it may bring, California has embarked on a journey that is unprecedented in U.S. history, with all the risk and excitement that such a journey entails. To help map this journey, PPIC has begun a series of research projects to describe this new demographic reality and to study the consequences of ethnic and racial diversity for the formation of public policy. As one of the first contributions to that series, Ethnic Context, Race Relations, and California Politics takes a careful look at ethnic group relations at the neighborhood level. After reviewing precinct-level data on racial attitudes and voting behavior, Bruce Cain, Jack Citrin, and Cara Wong find " no evidence that ethnic group relations are particularly troubled in highly diverse areas or that these areas will serve as cauldrons for future problems. " Even more encouraging is their finding that " where there were differences between whites and nonwhites, they often were in the direction of greater tolerance and agreement between whites and nonwhites in mixed areas than in homogenous ones. " At the same time, the authors found significant ethnic group differences in racial attitudes and voting behavior. They also found that most residents prefer to live in neighborhoods in which members of their own ethnic group constitute a majority. (They note, however, that this iv preference does not necessarily contradict an acceptance of diversity in the workplace, in higher education, or in public life generally.) Finally, the authors predict that " California's political climate on racial and cultural issues will depend in large part on …