ETHNOGRAPHER TO DISCUSS AMERICA'S MULTIETHNIC FUTURE

Roger Sanjek, whose book The Future of Us All won the prestigious J. Staley Prize of the School of American Research, will look at America's imminent transformation into a multiethnic, multiracial society in a talk titled "Studying America's Great Transition: Fieldwork Discoveries in Queens, New York," on Thursday, April 22, at 7 p.m. The talk, sponsored by the Center for Ethnicities, Communities and Social Policy, will be held in Thomas 110. It is free and open to the public.

By 2080, Americans of African, Asian and Latin American ancestry will outnumber those of European origin. This great transition from a majority white population to a racially diverse one with no numerical majority occured in New York City 's Elmhurst-Corona neighborhood in the 1970s. Sanjek and a multiethnic team of 15 researchers conducted a study of this change over the course of 13 years, from 1983 to 1996. This research, based in classical anthropological methods, yielded discoveries of five key factors accounting for the relatively peaceful and cooperative transition that developed in Elmhurst-Corona. Sanjek also identified two negative factors that made multiracial, multiethnic cooperation more difficult to achieve.

While the population mix and institutional conditions are not repeated precisely in all neighborhoods that are experiencing demographic change, Sanjek argues that the seven factors he identified in Queens are likely to appear, with minor variations, in other locales. The experience of Elmhurst-Corona could thus serve as a guide for making the coming transition to a multiethnic America more harmonious.

Sanjek is a professor of anthropology at Queens College, City University of New York. The winner of a Guggenheim Fellowship, he is a groundbreaking urban ethnographer who has published widely on matters of race and ethnicity.

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