Micro-Melting Pots.

A careful examination of the torrent of statistics flowing from the U.S. Census Bureau reveals that the nation's minority groups, especially Hispanics and Asians, are heavily clustered in selected regions and markets. Rather than witnessing the formation of a homogeneous national melting pot, we are seeing the creation of numerous mini-melting pots-in contrast to the rest of America, which is much less diverse. Through intermarriage and the blending of cultures, each of these melting-pot metros will develop its own politics, tastes for consumer items, and demographic personalities. Commentators, marketers, and political analysts should understand and take into account these multiple melting pots and the new ethnic frontiers presaged by their spillover as predictors of America's changing racial/ethnic landscape. In a broad swath of the country the minority presence is still quite limited. America's racial and ethnic patterns have taken on distinctly regional dimensions.