The changing flavor of American’s melting pot

SAN FRANCISCO – If you want to see the new face of America, come to California. It’s turning more Hispanic, more Asian and more gay.

Consider these snapshots. The teacher in our grandsons’ playgroup switches easily from English to Spanish and back again. The freshman class at the University of California’s Berkeley campus is 44 percent Asian and only 28 percent white. A woman we met in a park drives a blue Volvo station wagon with a car seat for her son and a gay pride sticker that proclaims “Just Married.”