Barely a few decades ago, it was not uncommon for scholars to discuss diversity, race and ethnicity in binary terms: minorities and majorities, black and white. But the dramatic increase of ethic, racial, linguistic and religious diversity in America’s urban centers, especially during the last two decades, requires new research and more nuanced models both to understand and manage the changing face of our society.
 
These are precisely the issues that dozens of UCLA faculty members will delve into at the upcoming inaugural conference of the new UCLA Institute of American Cultures. The event begins Thursday evening and runs for a full day Friday.
 
Structured as a one-day conference, with a pre-conference roundtable on the preceding evening, superdiversity"Superdiversity California Style: New Approaches to Race, Civil Rights, Governance and Cultural Production" seeks to understand what the dramatic demographic changes that have taken place over the last few decades mean for Los Angeles specifically, and, more broadly, for the United Sates.
 
"We’ve entered an entirely new phase in terms of diversity," said M. Belinda Tucker, vice provost of the Institute of American Cultures. "Many of our urban centers are experiencing an explosion in heterogeneity that has never been experienced on this Earth."
 
Tucker sees in these changes the potential for not only pitfalls, such as intergroup conflicts and competition for resources, but also opportunities to exchange ideas and learn from each other — in other words, a fertile ground for societal growth.
 
Despite decades in the making, the new superdiversity that characterizes major cities across the United States and the world remains under-examined and poorly understood.
 
Tucker hopes that by gathering scholars from diverse disciplines, from institutions across the country and from all four of UCLA’s ethnic studies research centers, the conference will begin a conversation about the fundamental questions superdiversity raises about the pursuit of equality, social justice, racialization and the various ways in which global pressures interact with and shape our responses to emerging geopolitical dynamics.
 
It will also provide an opportunity for scholars to explore the ethnic and cultural fusions that have launched an explosion of bold new musical, artistic and even culinary forms.
 
"Superdiversity California Style" takes place Thursday, Feb. 28, from 5-7 p.m. and Friday, March 1, from 9 a.m. to 6:10 p.m. at the UCLA Faculty Center’s California Room.
 
For more information or to RVSP, visit the Institute of American Cultures website.
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