Final Project
Trent Harrington
ETH/125
November 3, 2014
Constance Dolecki
Final Project
The United States is a culturally diverse nation. The U.S. has the opportunity to become the most economically sound nation by using diversity to our advantage. Everyone has had an ancestor who has struggled in the past. This can help us understand each other. The rise in minorities will have to change government policy in order for diversity to make the U.S. have economic strength. Education will keep the U.S. strong and help us learn to not take things at face value. We must learn to find the reasons why things happened and not point fingers at minority groups.
Learning about my own cultural history has made me more aware of the repetition of racism and sexism throughout the history of the United States. In England the Irish were often depicted as monkeys, which are similar to how people depict African Americans today (SnippitsandSnappits, 2010). It is a ploy to dehumanize the subordinate group to make them seem like animals. The Irish were also shown as being a burden to England. The Irish were assessed as using England for resources and government help (Donnely, 2011). This is similar to how many people view the poor who are struggling to survive just as the Irish were. England also saw the Irish as something they would be better off without. The way that England acted toward them is strikingly similar to how people in the United States think about immigrants. Another similarity is that the Irish were not allowed to vote, which prevented them from helping themselves. These are often a symptoms of a subordinate role.
This makes me realize that my Irish ancestors were persecuted just like the minorities in the United States. In the past I would also be in a subordinate role in society. My family is a part of a tragedy from the past of violence between African Americans and the Irish.
The only religion I truly did not know about until this semester was the Hindu religion. I did my assignment this religion because I didn’t know anything about it. Learning about the Hindu religion felt similar to learning about archaeology. It is the oldest religion and I can see parts of it in all religions (GotQuestions, n.d.). The defining difference is that Hinduism is a religion that doesn’t force others into their religion. They accept others as they are. If we are going to accept all the diversity between each other we could learn a lot from the ideals of Hinduism. I am not religious in any way, but I do believe that Hinduism has a structure that excels in accepting diversity and growing from it.

The United States will have more minorities than White people by the year 2050. The U.S. will have up to 50 percent more people, which will put the population to around 420 million (Cosgrove-Mather, 2004). The elderly currently make up 12 percent of the population, but that will rise to 21 percent by 2050 (Cosgrove-Mather, 2004). The White population will be around 50.1 percent of the population (Cosgrove-Mather, 2004). This will change the current majority status that White people have held in the United States. Asian Americans will increase their population in the U.S. to three times what it is now (Cosgrove-Mather, 2004). This makes the Asian American population around eight percent of the population by 2050 (Cosgrove-Mather, 2004). The African American population is expected to grow to 15 percent of the population (Cosgrove-Mather, 2004). The Hispanic population is where the most growth will come from. The Hispanic population will be around 25 percent of the population (Cosgrove-Mather, 2004).
As minority populations grow the way Americans see them will change. People will be interacting with minorities more than ever. This will increase interracial marriage (Froelich, 2014). Interracial marriage will also contribute to the future’s multicultural society. Children will be checking multiple boxes due to interracial marriage. Hispanics image will