Yes yes yes Mad Scientist! I couldn't have said it any better. I am at the end of generation X, and am realing feeling what the next generation is doing. When asked my nationality I always remark that I am an American, doesn't matter what my makeup is. It is very fascinating to watch the cross over, mixing, melding, and reshaping of this nation into a true picture of what really comprises it. Personally I cannot relate to my somewhat older peers at all. I am still in many ways quite young acting and the culture and enviroment I grew up in is so mutch different than even someone five years older than me. The government is so antiquated with it's all white majority, I can't wait for the day when all those Millenials reach their majority.

By Mad_scientist (134.124.212.217) on Wednesday, April 18, 2001 - 11:54 am:

Ishvara,

Yep. It is really interesting what will come out of this in 20 years.

By Mad_scientist (134.124.212.217) on Wednesday, April 18, 2001 - 11:53 am:

Here is a question, will Millennials (Generation Y) recast the image of an American, from a white European to a mix of colors and blended cultures? That is what it looks like we might be going. It can be implied that the large amount of mixed dating going on with teens is largely the result of the hybrid culture now emerging. The young are taking many different cultural aspects, and melding them together to form a new American pop culture, and new culture in general. In fact, when you look at thee reviews amd responses to the movie "Save The Last Dance", you will find that there is an extremely large gap between those who were older than 21, and those who were younger. While those older didn't like the movie, those under it loved it, and ate it up. Another movie that shows mixed dating among teens is "Finding Forrester". We know that mixed dating among teens is not just a fad, because they are changing American culture, and what it means to be an American along with it. As Reagan said, America is the only nation in which an immigrant can really become an American, and the young seem to be bringing this to heart. Where the new pop culture that sprang up during the 1960s and 1970s showed a marked division, the new one of the 2000s, and into the 2010s will show a marked melding. This is also consistent with the two-apart generational differences. The Boomers were raised under the idea of the melting pot, but then rejected it later with a preference for tossed salad and a mosaic of cultures. However, Millennials were raised on the idea of a mosaic by their Boomer, and Generation X parents, and are rejecting that for the melting pot idea, and the hybrid culture is an outcome of this. But it is not going to end here. In fact, the hybrid culture that we see today is only the beginning. I read the book Millennials Rising, and it states that in many ways, Millennials ARE the opposite of their Boomer parents. As a result, these authors predict that this "hybrid culture" will be very far reaching, and the ethnicities will show a strong merge. And I agree totally. We are in a totally different era. My father was the product of the black power 1960s and 1970s. When we watched "Remember the Titans" together, I was amazed by the amount of racial division. My father, however, said that the division was actually much stronger than shown in the movie. As a result, he has different thoughts about race, and to him, almost everything can be thought in terms of black and white. Like there is a black way to drive a car, and a white way to drive a car, etc. But today's pop culture has so far gotten to the point in which even "white music" and "black music" are not so distinguishable. Expect for this trend to continue. Imagine a new sound with a mixture of Leann Rymmes, Jay-Z, Mandy Moore, Nine Inch Nails, Ricky Martin, all thrown into a pot. Throw in a little happiness, and this is the future of the pop culture music business. This hybrid culture is apparent on the Disney Channel. Almost every Disney show now has a "colorful" cast. And there are even scenes that would shock many older people, such as a black boy kissing a white girl at the end of one movie. And this is spreading out to the other stations. In fact, many interviews have shown that the large number of mixed race couples and people within the last 2 years is a response to the younger generation, who wouldn't raise a fuss. Remember in the early 1990s, when "Jungle Fever" was relelased. Even though it cast mixed race relationships in a bad light, there was still a large uproar in both the black and white communities against the interracial dating in the movie. Contrast that with "Save the Last Dance". The reaction to the movie by the Millennials were opposite, even while it showed interracial relationships in a good light. It can be implied that "Save the Last Dance" was a test for the younger generation, showing where the age divide was. So with a generation behemoth larger than even the Boomers, Millennials will quickly take over pop culture. And with that, America will really begin to reflect this generation during the 2000s decade the same way the 1960s reflected the Boomers, but the effect will be much different. As a result, at home and abroad, the concept of what is and isn't American will be entirely changed.

By Ishvara (38.163.112.103) on Wednesday, April 18, 2001 - 11:30 am:

Yeah, SO much, I love it. It is not an issue with most younger people. I see many mixed race young couples and this trend will only gain in strength, popular culture and sheer numbers will keep it alive.

By Mad_scientist (134.124.212.217) on Wednesday, April 18, 2001 - 10:54 am:

An article about teens and race can be found here. But since many of you are not registered with Nytimes.com, I will post the test of the article below. Are youth the future, and have you personally seen many examples?

April 8, 2001

Selling to Gen Y: A Far Cry From Betty Crocker

By COREY TAKAHASHI

AMERICAN identity — a mix of cultural politics, social mores and generational crosscurrents — has never been more difficult to pin down. And nowhere has that identity become more racially nuanced than among Generation Y, those newborns to early twentysomethings who represent the largest population swell since the baby boom and probably the biggest ever in United States history.

Also known as the Millennials or the Echo Boom, they are chiefly the children of baby boomers and new immigrants, a demographic behemoth born roughly between 1982 and 2002 and numbering over 82 million. (Some experts define the group as those born between 1977 and 1997.)

Though still a work in progress, Gen Y cuts a very different racial profile from previous generations. According to Census 2000, children under the age of 18 are less likely than adults to be white, and are twice as likely to identify themselves as being of more than one race. In 1972, at the peak of the baby boom, nearly 80 percent of elementary and high school students were non-Hispanic whites. By 1999, the year in which today's student population equaled the baby boom's high of 49 million, that figure had dropped to 63 percent.

"The younger the age group, the more diverse the population," said Gregory Spencer, chief of the Census Bureau's population projections branch, citing immigration as the cause. The trend reflects what William H. Frey, a University of Michigan demographer, calls a "racial generation gap," where whites are a considerable majority among the elderly and the working-age population and its children become more diverse.

Well aware that this racially mixed group of Gen Y'ers is fast becoming one of the nation's largest consumer blocks, marketers are now grappling with the multibillion-dollar challenge of wooing and defining them. The Millennials have already shown themselves to be big spenders.

According to Teenage Research Unlimited, those aged 12 to 19 spent $155 billion last year on music, fashion and other teen necessities. The only other group with that type of marketplace muscle is the fiftysomething baby boomer, which is growing faster in size than teens but is more cautious with its purchases — and less of a lightning rod for trends.

"It's like a new tide coming in," said Neil Howe, 49, co-author of "Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation," adding that the young tend to view racial change as a given. "They are aware of growing up in a society with widening diversity and fragmentation. That's where they are," he said. "But where they want to go is toward something which is much more melting potlike." This is, after all, the first generation to grow up with the aesthetics of hip-hop (itself a hybrid phenomenon that sprang up in urban America in the 1970's) embedded in the cultural mainstream, from Billboard rap hits to baggy jeans to urban youth who set the pace for countless manners of style. "It's cool and hip to be ethnic, and that was not the case a few years ago among mainstream teens," said Miguel Lyons-Cavazos, director of business development at Cheskin Research, a market research firm. "More and more, the white kids in middle America think that way, which is significant."

No surprise, then, that Gen Y pop stars like Eminem are able to appeal to black and white audiences, or that the pop queen Christina Aguilera performs in Spanish at the Grammys. But the hybrid nature of Gen Y runs much deeper than that.

For one thing, members of Gen Y date more freely across racial lines than in past generations, according to William Strauss, 54, co-author of "Millennials Rising," and a 1997 USA Today/Gallup poll bears that out: 57 percent of teens who dated said that they had done so interracially; another 30 percent said they had no objection to doing so.

Anne Kallin Zehren, 37, the publisher of Teen People, has seen the parental fault line on this issue. "We were getting a bunch of e-mails from trend-spotters who were saying, `Hey, I'm dating someone from another race. I'm totally cool with it, but my parents are not,' " said Ms. Zehren.

All that comfort with racial difference is a boon to people like Russell Simmons, the founder of Def Jam Records, the Phat Farm clothing label and other hip-hop enterprises. "There's a segregation that still exists in a lot of ways, but not among young people," he explained. Mr. Simmons, 43, whose joint ad agency, dRush, has worked for mainstream clients like HBO and Coca-Cola, is no stranger to the way hybrid culture has captured the attention of advertisers. "It's the best brand-building culture in America today," he said.

But don't just take his word for it. Sprite's current "Voices of the Street" campaign, by Lowe Lintas & Partners, reflects a multiracial mosaic, with its scenes of black, white and brown faces leaning into a camera to deliver a cappella raps. It's not the type of branding strategy Betty Crocker might cook up.

MEANWHILE, the trend has not been lost on television and film producers. Consider "Save the Last Dance," a hip-hop flavored interracial love story and one of the year's biggest teen movies, or Jessica Alba, the mixed-race heroine of the Fox network's popular "Dark Angel" series. From biracial casting on MTV's "The Real World" to the multiethnic models in Guess? and Tommy Hilfiger ads, pop culture is infused with youthful, racially ambiguous Gen Y faces.

"They can be sort of half-black, half-white, half- Asian — you don't know what they are," Mr. Howe said of what he terms the millennial advertisement. "It's very different from ads used in the late-wave boom and very popular during the Gen X childhood era, where you'd have kind of salt and pepper — one white and one black — people of very identifiable races."

Still, teenagers are mercurial in their tastes, and it's difficult — if not impossible — to predict their longterm reactions to market-tested multiculturalism. Evelyn Delcid Posner, for instance, is a 17-year-old Guatemalan immigrant, a junior at Berkeley High School in California, and — marketers take note — a Latina teen who can't stand the Bronx-bred Puerto Rican pop star Jennifer Lopez.

"That's not the way I want a Latina to represent the community," Ms. Delcid Posner said, criticizing Ms. Lopez's public persona and style of dress. "It seems like she tries to be someone else. She tries to be white sometimes, she tries to be black sometimes." But, she added, "I personally love Shakira," the Grammy-winning Colombian pop singer. "She really stays true to her music and her country, even though she wants to cross over."