In embracing the notion of a majority-minority nation, Democrats who advocate identity politics are not placing as good a bet as some of them think. //

the census projections reflect a “one-drop” rule akin to that used in the Jim Crow South. The white category consists only of people who are 100 percent “non-Hispanic white.” If one adopts a more expansive definition of white, the projection of a majority-minority nation disappears. Dowell Myer and Morris Levy, for example, calculate what future American populations would look like if anyone who checks the white box on question 9 is classified as white. With this extremely liberal classification, the nation is three-quarters white in 2060.

On first hearing about the projected nonwhite majority, many people probably form a mental image that looks roughly like this: 4 whites, 2 Hispanics, 2 blacks, 1 Asian, and perhaps one “other.” As the preceding discussion explains, however, the picture is much more complex. The majority of minorities will not consist of people who are 100 percent Latino, 100 percent Asian, 100 percent black, 100 percent Native American, or 100 percent Hawaiian or Pacific Islander (the official census categories). Rather, the majority of minorities will include people of numerous shadings of color. //

Alba reports numerous analyses using census data, birth certificates, and surveys to describe the increasing occurrence of mixed marriages and the children who are products of such interracial and interethnic unions. Mixed marriage rates have steadily increased, and the ongoing census will likely report that nearly one in five new marriages now are mixed. Fully 80 percent of these marriages are between a white American and a minority. About 40 percent of these involve a white and a Hispanic, with Asian-white unions at 15 percent. //

A majority of foreign-born residents are not citizens, a discrepancy likely to grow because the foreign-born population will increase, to about 17 percent in 2050.

If this proportion does not change markedly, half or more of the foreign-born — the vast majority non-white or Hispanic — will not be eligible to vote in 2050. All in all, at mid-century and beyond, whites are virtually certain to remain the effective electoral majority at the national level.

Throughout his book, Alba shows great sensitivity in the presentation and discussion of the findings. Ethnic activists and some scholars in the academy are heavily invested in the majority-minority narrative and will not welcome the evidence that the narrative is largely an artifact of questionable data classifications.