General Population Statistics and Means of Identification

1. Population passed 300 million in October 2006 — (see www.census.gov for current estimate)

2. The population is continually growing, due to immigration and high birth rates; it is projected to reach 400 million by 2050. There is a net gain of one person every 13 seconds; the population increased by 105 million (more than the populations of France, Germany or Italy) from 1970 to 2010. There is a low national population density, with vast amounts of open space to accommodate the increasing population

3. The population has an overall youth-orientation (while also a rapidly-growing 'senior' sector) and great racial, ethnic and other diversity, with a constant stimulus of new ideas from the interplay of different backgrounds. This is seen as a national strength.

4. An official census is taken every 10 years at beginning of decade, and is updated via the ongoing American Community Survey; however, there is no national "civil register" or enforceable requirement to supply census or other demographic information.

5. Some see the census itself as being controversial; see the January 2010 Pew Report on Census Attitudes (also in PDF format).

6. The 2010 census form was the shortest ever — see the 2010 Form [PDF] and 2000 Census Long Form [PDF] for types of questions asked

7. Personal identification: a birth certificate or state driver's license [Missouri, PDF] (also for non-operators), new 2006 voter ID requirement [Missouri example] (cf. other forms of "motor voter" legislation), general requirement to show "2 forms of ID" — no virkatodistus, Finnish-U.S. differences with SSNs, residential registration, etc.

National Identity and Shared Values: Unity vs Diversity

1. The U.S. has always been highly pluralistic, with great ethnic and racial diversity. What have been the unifying factors, and how might they be changing? Is this symbolized by a shift in cultural metaphors from 'melting pot' to 'mosaic' and 'salad bowl'? Have the late 20th and early 21st centuries witnessed a loss of national identity and increasing social fragmentation (see One Nation of 300,000,000)?

2. Traditional unifying factors have included the American English language, high mobility via excellent physical and media communications, and an implicit belief in the "American Creed" and "American Dream."

3. Part of the Creed and Dream are a sense of national destiny, opportunity, responsibility and 'equality', derived from colonial New England Puritanism (see The American Way of Equality), a sense of shared goals and community involvement and, until the late 1960s, a standard educational 'canon'.

4. Since the 1960s, the population has been changing from its traditional dominance by white European-based ethnicity and values toward greater cultural assertiveness by Black Americans and rapidly emerging pluralities of Hispanic and Asian Americans, especially in regions which have had significant increases in Hispanic and Asian immigration.

5. This has coincided with rapidly-expanding mass media choices, resulting in "media individualism" (cf. Saturday Evening Post and Norman Rockwell vs '10-Speed Bicycle Camping'). 'Media individualism' both reflects and stimulates larger sociocultural 'individualisms' (vs. past senses of social cohesion).

6. In the 1960s, new multicultural values emerged (cf. Ronald Takaki and A Different Mirror) which accelerated the growth of 'individualism' and 'diversity' in ways that have been politically controversial (cf. Richard Lamm on Multiculturalism, for example). The concept of multiculturalism has been one of the main influences for change in the traditional educational 'canon' (cf. Harold Bloom's Western Canon).

7. Post-1970s affirmative action policies also challenged traditional U.S. cultural unities. While affirmative action policies overall have been considered successful (see timeline), they were always controversial. Among the challenges to affirmative action (in the education field alone) were claims of "reverse discrimination" — cf. DeFunis (see also Wikipedia, Regents of the Univ. of California vs. Bakke, Hopwood v. Texas, etc.)

8. Nonetheless, there is still a high sense of community involvement in American society, especially locally, with neighborhood associations, 'welcome wagon' services for new residents, relatively close relationships among neighbors (taking food to new families moving in, or when there has been a death in the family, etc.), voluntary work with church and civic projects, and many similar practices.

Recent Demographic Trends

1. Urbanization (1920 onwards) - Suburbanization - Exurbanization - etc.
2. Overwhelming majority of jobs white collar, service-oriented, mobile
3. Growing social abstraction with combination of urbanization, high physical mobility, expansion of individualized media and communications options, lessening of 'community' orientation, etc.
4. Changes in certain public attitudes (tax payments, respect for government, etc.) from 'participatory' to 'adversarial'
5. Still, strong sense of national optimism, willingness toward voluntary participation in 'meaningful ventures', etc. — though often directed more toward individual movements within the nation than toward unified national movements

Concepts of Class in America

1. No traditional European sense of class division or 'working class'
2. Competition-based social and economic identification, where one may rise or fall (cf. 'individualism' of Turner's Frontier Theory plus American Creed & Dream)
3. Strong mass identification with the "middle class" and "middle class values", although often qualified as "lower middle class" or "upper middle class"
4. Associations of wealth, education, profession, race and class status
5. "Lower class" more likely to be black vs white, rural vs urban, 'inner-city' vs suburban, high school or dropout vs college-educated, unemployed or part-time workers vs full-time employed — cf. 'digital divide', the 'invisible poor', 'Culture of Poverty' etc.
6. "Upper-class" markers: WASP stereotype, continuity over time vs wealth alone, New England 'blue bloods' & Mayflower, Boston 'Brahmin' dialect, Ivy League education, activity in arts, culture, public service, family names (Astor, Cabot, Lodge, etc.).