Who We Are:: A Portrait of America Based on the 1990 Census

A portrait of the United States, culled from data based on the 1990 U.S. Census, offers startling statistics, such as the profile of the average American--a 32.7-year-old white woman whose mortgaged suburban home is heated by natural gas. 15,000 first printing.

This study by the urban affairs columnist of the New York Times interprets the raw data from the Census Bureau's national census of 1990. The book contains much information that will come as no surprise to most readers: the number of teenage pregnancies in all ethnic groups is increasing; more than a million Americans are in jail or on probation; the Reagan-Bush administrations benefitted the rich primarily. And there are data which are essentially meaningless, like education measured quantitatively rather than qualitatively. The statistics show the results of racism in the nation: higher infant death rates, shorter life span, 84% joblessness or poverty-level employment for high school dropouts and fewer nuclear families among America's black society. Given the figures compiled here about the country's many troubles, the book serves as a warning that changes must be made. First serial to the New York Times Magazine and Cosmopolitan; author tour.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

At best, census statistics represent single frames in a moving picture. With due regard for the limitations, New York Times columnist Roberts has seized upon the demographic data accruing from 1990's nose count to produce a series of snapshots that provide provocative if sometimes blurry perspectives on the vigorous state of the union. The author imposes a welcome measure of order on the wealth of figures at his disposal by focusing on a dozen major topics from vantage points that afford him access to both a rearview mirror and a crystal ball. Cases in point range from a rundown on the country's ethnic/racial mix through rapid-fire takes on the age, economic status, education, lifestyle, and allied characteristics of US residents (whether aliens or citizens). Roberts delivers his by-the-numbers briefings and interpretive commentary (which is informed by a notably liberal sensibility) at a breakneck pace that could overwhelm the inattentive. The easily distracted need not despair, however, because nearly every page includes an arresting fact or finding that will give most readers pause. By way of example, in canvassing our culturally diverse, graying, predominantly suburban population (which had expanded by close to 10%, to almost 249.0 million, since the last decennial check), enumerators found more millionaires than homeless street people. They also learned that blacks are the only group whose women outnumber its men in the labor force and that no family group grew faster than single parents, while the roll call of gainfully employed health-care workers was 50% greater than in 1980; elsewhere on the minus side of 1990's ledger, twice as many individuals worked for government as themselves. Absorbing abstracts that breathe life and meaning into the mercurial arithmetic of America. The text has helpful charts, maps, and tabular material throughout. (First serial to Cosmopolitan, National Enquirer, and New York Times Magazine) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Themes in this thought-provoking work bring together otherwise discrete census statistics not only from 1990 but from earlier years: immigration patterns ("our complexion"); demographics ("where we live, how we dream and commute"); changes in the distribution of poverty; figures showing that correctional facilities got top housing investment dollars in 1990; comparative education levels of different elements in our population; and statistics indicating that the fastest population growth in the United States is occurring among those under age five or over 60. Can census data help tell us how to plan? Roberts, a New York Times urban affairs columnist, acknowledges a surfeit of variables but implies that we can learn from interpreting available information such as the census. Here, however, he predicts only that the world (including America) will be much more complicated and diverse in the future. An interesting and browsable book.
- Suzanne W. Wood, SUNY Coll. of Technology, Alfred
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

By analyzing 1990 census results (and comparing them with results from previous years), Roberts points out surprising changes in American society as well as troubling echoes from previous eras. He touches on the aging of the U.S. population and on racial and economic discrimination, pointing out that "never before, despite previous waves of immigration, has the nation been so diverse. Nor have contrasts . . . been so stark." His informative summary of the census also describes how it was compiled. Denise Perry Donavin