Race and Demographics

With the riots in Baltimore and Michelle Obama's commencement speech at Tuskegee University in the news this past week the subjects of race and demographics have been on my mind. I  was wondering  how the First Lady felt when Rush Limbaugh said she was "exhibiting upity-ism." That she was one of her husband's "cronies of color." I wonder if Fox News  ever called Laura Bush George's "baby mama"  like they called Mrs. Obama.

So here I am thinking about race and demographics as we drive through the New California, the one that reflects the changing demography of the U.S. The one where white children are barely 50% of the population under 20. I don't get to see this reflected in Phoenix but I certainly see it here.

We stopped at a food court in a mall in Silicon Valley town named Milpitas. And I noticed that Caucarians were very much  in the minority. Wikipedia says Milpitas is 20% white but at the mall it was more like 5%.  Even the food choices at the food court were mostly Asian- Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, etc. And both the shoppers and staff in the Saks and Neiman's in the mall were mostly Asian and Latino too.  hadn't had this experience before, have you? At least not stateside. But I guess this is the wave of the future. Maybe the next president after Hillary will be Asian.

This is not a great photo, I know, but the only one I took at the food court.

That was observation #1.  Observation #2 is the  greying of America. 12% of California  is over 65. That is one out of every 8 people. I first noticed this a few days aho when we went to a music  festival in Sacramento and almost everyone there was a senior. I didn't really see anyone much under fifty. Or even many folks under 65. Even many of the musicians were older. They played all kinds of music from Rock to jazz to zydeco ( but no rap) so I don't know how to interpret this.

The next day we went to Berkeley. It was a holiday so the university was not in session but there were vendors on the streets. Most of the vendors were seniors. Could these same vendors have made a career of selling stuff on the streets of Berkeley since the sixties????

What I want to know is if 12% of the U.S. is seniors, how come we can't have a few movies or tv shows that star or even include seniors? I tried to watch that new sixties tv show last night, Aquarius, but it was too violent for me. It may be set in the sixties but it is not aiming at an audience of survivors of the sixties.

The other thing I want to know is why my Thai lunch at the mall in Milpitas was so tasteless and terrible?  If 62% of the population of the town is Asian, why can't they have good Asian mall food like they do in Asia? My Spicy Thai  Soup was bland as dishwater.

A last observation is about marijuana. As we checked into our hotel last night the desk clerk reminded us that no smoking in the rooms includes medical marijuana. That's a new warning. At least to me. I will say that I have smelled it in more than one hotel corridor.

So in some ways this trip has been more than a visit to California. It has been a trip to the future.