摘要：

point is not that these shifts toward a "minority- majority" society are bad. They definitely are not. Fifty million people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds living harmoniously together would be the ultimate model of a "true community" for the rest of the world.The question is: will they live together harmoniously or will the recurrent interracial battles so often reported in the media become the norm? While much has been written about the benefits of diversity, little has been said about possible increased tension among groups.To put it in sociological terms, what form of cultural adaptation will emerge in such a heterogeneous society? At one extreme is cultural separatism, in which the groups are socially isolated from one another, often through segregationist practices by the host group. At the other extreme is cultural amalgamation where a new society and culture results from massive intermarriage among the groups.Between these extremes are pluralism, assimilation, and the melting pot. In pluralism, the society allows the various ethnic groups to develop, each emphasizing its particular cultural heritage. Assimilation assumes that the new groups will take on the culture and values of the host society and gradually discard their own heritage. Following the seminal study by sociologist Milton Gordon, cultural assimilation (or acculturation), where a subordinate group takes on many of the characteristics of the dominant group, is distinguished from structural assimilation, where that subordinate group also gains access to the principal institutions of the society.1 In the melting pot, the host and immigrants groups share each other's cultures and in the process a new group emerges. Throughout California history newcomers as well as long-time residents have had to adapt to one another. Otherwise the society could not have survived.Can the relative success achieved in the adaptation of previous immigrants and their descendants into a new "melting pot" within the majority population be duplicated with the current and future mix of racially diverse ethnic groups?This seems unlikely given the situation in 1990- 2000 as compared to that in 1890-1900. The differences in economic structure, in the possibilities of inter-ethnic marriages, and in the increasing emphasis on group rights, and particularly in the level and persistence of immigration -- are far too great to envision a new interracial melting pot in the foreseeable future.

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