Communities across the country are experiencing profound changes in their racial, ethnic, cultural, and social compositions. These changes will bring with them significant cultural shifts that will transform the fabric of our society's values and practices at every level—from individuals to organizations, communities, governments, and markets—from the local to the global. Recent immigration alone has had a dramatic impact: twenty-two states with relatively low immigrant levels before 1990 saw their foreign-born populations grow by over 90 percent during the 1990s. Most of these "new growth" states form a broad band from the Pacific Northwest, through the mountain states, across the Midwest, to most of the Southeast.(1) Our increasingly cosmopolitan population includes over 54 million people who speak languages other than English.(2)

If we look beyond immigration patterns and more broadly at the racial/ethnic minority populations in the U.S., by mid-century we will see a tripling of the numbers of Latinos and Asians, to over 102 million and 33 million respectively, and the number of African Americans will grow by about 70% to over 61 million. The population of indigenous peoples (Native Americans, Alaskans, Hawaiians, and other Pacific Islanders) as well as those of multiple ancestries will grow from seven million to over 22 million.(3) Since the 2000 census opened the door to exploring more in depth the complexity of people's ancestry (by allowing the choosing of more than one race/ethnicity category), our concepts of identity will no doubt evolve even more dramatically within the coming decades.

Demographics within various ethnic, racial, and geographic groups are also changing with regard to age, economic class, gender, and education. For example, young people (those under age 18) have a stronger presence in the Latino community than in the U.S. overall, representing 35% of that population as opposed to 25.7% in the country generally.(4) The number of Asians with advanced degrees across the country is almost double the national average, while for American Indians, Latinos, Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders it is less than half.(5)

The constantly transforming ways of living, working, and being that people have in the U.S. present a complex of social challenges. A paradigm shift confronts the arts and culture field as terms like "minority," "mainstream," "ethnic-specific," "dominant culture," "traditional," “contemporary,” "underserved," and "underrepresented" are being inverted, made obsolete, or given new meaning by the profound demographic changes taking place. At the same time, the values, knowledge, and abilities that people carry in them create a brilliant collage of opportunities. Cultural organizations at the vanguard of responding to changing communities can offer insights and practices that will expand our understanding of the arts and society. ARTOGRAPHY aims to support and learn from such organizations.