Look Ahead Baby Boomers: There is a colorful mosaic blending in America's tapestry.
—By 2039, racial and ethnic minorities will make up a majority of the U.S. working-age population, helping to support a disproportionately elderly white population through Social Security and other payroll taxes. More than 1 in 4 people ages 18-64 will be Latino.
Several years ago I stated in a graduate paper “The metaphorical catching of the big fish has a process that can only happen after the relationship between the elder and youth symbolically become meshed.” Taking this thought into a global mindset leads us to question the benefit of community. Yesterday I was reading Malcolm Gladwell’s #1 best seller Outliers in which he chronicles Roseto, Pennsylvania, a small town of Italian immigrants, in the late 1800’s. What made this town/group so fascinating was that they were all dying of “old age.” There were no heart diseases or illness. Why? Their community was close, and their support system, extended families, and third generational bonds within nuclear families, created such a strong bond in the communal relationships that people were not just functioning better but they were happy – imagine? What an idea! After reading an on-line article that is laced with statistics on immigration and Baby Boomers and the new face of America a thought crossed my mind. Regardless of one’s beliefs, or politics on immigration and different cultures in the United States, we, as a country, can not move forward in a positive until we move forward with an open mind; an appreciation of our TRUE history; an appreciation for difference; an appreciation for the amends that must be made (which might be nothing more than an acknowledgement that there is noting that can be done while recognizing the past); and a realization that “change is gonna come.”
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