California tests racial boundaries

On a day last week that will likely be forgotten by all but the most avid historians, California's racial experiment took yet another most peculiar step.

On one hand, the state became the first to lay bare its slave-era past, releasing insurance records that list hundreds of slaves and their owners – opening the door wider for those who seek reparations for the past.

At the same time, a pollster announced that Californians generally support a first-of-its-kind ballot measure to eliminate race from almost every public document in the future – a move that, critics say, would undermine anti-discrimination efforts.

The contradiction would be startling, were this not California. Instead, it is simply further evidence that this most diverse state is America's leading laboratory on issues of race and ethnicity.

The question of how to deal with race is one that convulses the Golden State. As the first major state with no ethnic majority, the topic is unavoidable – and without precedent. The result has been a legal patchwork frequently shaped by political extremes – such as bans on affirmative action and bilingual education – which often seem improvised, and always fuel controversy.

But with fewer and fewer corners of America left untouched by immigration or racial strife, California is no anomaly. Rather, to many, it is a window on how the nation will evolve. As California probes the boundaries of racial policy, it is providing the rest of the country with guideposts for the decades ahead.

"California is like America, only more so," says Kevin Starr, the state librarian. "It is the scale and intensity that makes it interesting."

On issues of race and ethnicity, California's scale is without equal. From Bakersfield to Berkeley, it is a polyglot kingdom the likes of which America – perhaps the world – has never seen before.

California is home to roughly one-third of the nation's Latinos and Asian Americans. As in New Mexico and Hawaii, non-Hispanic whites are not a majority.

But unlike its state colleagues, which historically have had substantial Hispanic and Hawaiian populations, respectively, California's demographics have shifted dramatically. Just 20 years ago, the state was two-thirds Anglo. Twenty years from now, Hispanics are projected to be the largest ethnic group.

"We're in the midst of creating a new society that has never taken place anywhere else in the nation," says Mark Baldassare of the Public Policy Institute in San Francisco.

At times, this multicultural concoction seems as volatile as a Molotov cocktail, combusting in the Los Angeles riots. Most of the time, though, it is a picture of the globalized world, played in fast forward, and many residents are struggling to find how they fit in.

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