vendredi 25 mai 2018

WELCOME TO THE UNITED STATES, THE MOST OPEN MINDED AND MOST DIVERSE COUNTRY ON EARTH 
Just yesterday they announced the 10 finalists for the National Geography Bee sponsored by the National Geographic, well known for their erudite magazine and documentaries.
American students are usually portrayed as ignorant of the world and domestic geography. Not the ones pictures above, averaging about 12-13 years of age from various parts of the USA  California Oregon New Jersey Texas Massachusetts North Carolina , even North Dakota!
They knew the answers to difficult questions such as which state capital in USA is on the Pearl River, and the winning question, which south american country has a population similar to New Jersey? (paraguay is the answer). There were environmental awareness question, about the plastic pollution of River Yangtze, these young americans managed them all and the winner was Venkat Ramjan 13 year old who took home a 50 000 dollar scholarship, he lives in California.
There are 300 + million Americans.
Population of the United States by Race and Hispanic/Latino Origin, Census 2000 and 2010

Race and Hispanic/Latino originCensus 2010,
population
Percent of
population
Census 2000,
population
Percent of
population
Total Population308,745,538100.0%281,421,906100.0%
Single race    
White196,817,55263.7211,460,62675.1
Black or African American37,685,84812.234,658,19012.3
American Indian and Alaska Native2,247,098.72,475,9560.9
Asian14,465,1244.710,242,9983.6
Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander481,5760.15398,8350.1
Two or more races5,966,4811.96,826,2282.4
Some other race604,265
.2
15,359,0735.5
Hispanic or Latino50,477,59416.335,305,81812.5
I want you to note that there are only 3.6 % of the population that identifies itself as Asian and if you look for americans of Indian origin, they are not the major portion of that.
According to the 2010 United States Census, the Asian Indian population in the United States grew from almost 1,678,765 in 2000 (0.6% of U.S. population) to 2,843,391 in 2010 (0.9% of U.S. population), a growth rate of 69.37%, one of the fastest growing ethnic groups in the United States.
They constitute a very small number of Americans, these Indo-Americans( this does not include Pakistani-Americans, Bangladeshis, Nepalis, Sri Lankans) but they are disproportionately represented in Computer and Health Care Industries.
My own interest in Geography was sparked by a question my grandfather asked me when i was about 8 years of age.
He asked, dangling a chocolate in front of me: Imagine there is a railroad that goes from Cairo to Cape Town , which towns in which countries would that railroad pass through.. so entered such sonorous names into my mind Blantyre, Bulawayo, Khartoum, Kampala and other sounds of the African heartland..
Also I was given a stamp album around that age, and I learned that Botswana used to be called Bechuanaland, Nyasaland had disappeared and Zambia had appeared and that Mozambique was named after the Arab explorer Moussa al Bique ..
I listened to the video of the presentation of the ten finalists, with the courageous MC trying to pronounce the difficult names , for of the 10 finalists , 8 were Indian Americans and 2 were chinese americans..No Blacks, No african americans, haiti jamaica and no latins, mexico cuba..there has to be a cultural explanation to this lopsided representation of a small minority from India ..
As an anthropologist i can come up with a cultural explanation but I leave that for another day.
I have visited USA on numerous occasions and each time I come (almost monthly visits from my projects around the world) I notice the enlarging diversity that makes me very happy.
At the Centurion Club in Miami there are Colombians, Haitians and Cubans to say Hello and an odd Portugese; at the Flagship lounge there are Dominicans and Puerto Ricans and Costa Ricans and when you fly , a black man is kind and serves you a nice drink, on arrival the driver of the shuttle bus could be from Mexico, the hotel front desk is manned by a south east asian..
Cubans have transformed the once sleepy town of Miami into an International metropolis; Mexican immigrants to the midwest has added charm to the dying small town now reverberating to their songs and tortillas, Koreans, Chinese, and the exotic ones, Somali and the Hmong.. every one is here.. WELCOME to the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

featured posts

CUBA IS THE FUTURE FOR LATIN AMERICA AND PERHAPS THE WORLD

CUBA IS THE FUTURE FOR LATIN AMERICA AND PERHAPS THE WORLD On my way out of Cuba, from La Habana, on COPA airlines flight to Panama, I w...