From Publishers Weekly
Garcia marshals experience as a journalist (13 years at Time), novelist (Obsidian Sky) and multimedia entrepreneur to make "the business case for diversity": "Simply put, diversity breeds money." Those who fail to heed "the multicultural gospel" risk marginalization by the New Mainstream, a dynamic fusion of the "creative class," non-European immigrants and native-born American consumers with rapidly changing tastes and habits. At times, Garcia risks reducing culture to market forces and people to consumers ("for the new multicultural consumer, making and spending money is nothing less than a sacred, life-affirming act"). However, he works enough skepticism and detail into his argument to avoid flattening himself with it, mobilizing an impressively broad knowledge of cultures—popular, folk and high—and a lively sense of history. He warns that "ethnocentric nativism" and xenophobic policies, whether fueled by economic, cultural or terror-driven fears, can only damage the American corporation and nation. Garcia is at his best juggling a diverse range of examples of U.S. multiculturalism—Walt Whitman, 50 Cent, Octavio Paz, Shakira and Craig's List, to name a few—to make the argument that diversity is, more than ever, the dynamo driving American capitalism, and businesses had best take heed. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


Book Description

An economic revolution is transforming America. It's called The New Mainstream.

The New Mainstream explains how Americans will eat, work, play, learn, and spend money in the twenty-first century -- and why any organization that ignores the lessons of the New Mainstream is doomed to fail.

In The New Mainstream, Guy Garcia offers us both a wake-up call and a road map to the new multicultural reality in America. The New Mainstream is a corporate survival guide for the uncharted markets of the twenty-first century as well as an intellectual toolkit for anyone hoping to get a handle on -- or get ahead of -- the demographic and marketing trends of today's increasingly diverse global society.

Somewhere between the moment when salsa replaced ketchup as the nation's most popular condiment and the rise of a pugnacious white rapper named Eminem to a top-selling recording artist, America changed for good.

The change was both subtle and seismic. The change was demographic and social, cutting across corporations and organizations, and putting a multicultural spin on everything from business and politics to entertainment and technology. Mainstream America, the way we knew it, was gone for good. But what has replaced it?

The New Mainstream is the most profitable sector of the U.S. economy, and it will be the one to have the deepest impact on the very nature of what it means to be an American.

Led by the growing statistical and buying power of blacks, Latinos, and Asians, the New Mainstream is the loose coalition of minorities that have been forced to forge their own identity outside the Old Mainstream -- even as they use and consume mass-media and mass-produced products targeted to the general public. This new consumer economy is transforming how products and services are developed, marketed, and bought. And by tapping the core values that have helped to make the United States the world's most powerful country, the multicultural consumer is also America's best hope for the future.


About the Author
Guy Garcia is an award-winning journalist, novelist, and multimedia entrepreneur. A staff writer at Time magazine for thirteen years and a longtime contributor to the New York Times and other publications, he has also written two novels, Skin Deep and Obsidian Sky.More recently, he has worked on the development of AOL Latin America, AOL International, and AOL Broadband Music.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In The New Mainstream, Guy Garcia offers us both a wake-up call and a road map to the new multicultural reality in America. The New Mainstream is a corporate survival guide for the uncharted markets of the twenty-first century as well as an intellectual toolkit for anyone hoping to get a handle on -- or get ahead of -- the demographic and marketing trends of today's increasingly diverse global society. Somewhere between the moment when salsa replaced ketchup as the nation's most popular condiment and the rise of a pugnacious white rapper named Eminem to a top-selling recording artist, America changed for good. The change was both subtle and seismic. The change was demographic and social, cutting across corporations and organizations, and putting a multicultural spin on everything from business and politics to entertainment and technology. Mainstream America, the way we knew it, was gone for good. But what has replaced it?

The New Mainstream is the most profitable sector of the U.S. economy, and it will be the one to have the deepest impact on the very nature of what it means to be an American. Led by the growing statistical and buying power of blacks, Latinos, and Asians, the New Mainstream is the loose coalition of minorities that have been forced to forge their own identity outside the Old Mainstream -- even as they use and consume mass-media and mass-produced products targeted to the general public. This new consumer economy is transforming how products and services are developed, marketed, and bought. And by tapping the core values that have helped to make the United States the world's most powerful country, the multicultural consumer is also America's best hope for the future.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Garcia marshals experience as a journalist (13 years at Time), novelist (Obsidian Sky) and multimedia entrepreneur to make "the business case for diversity": "Simply put, diversity breeds money." Those who fail to heed "the multicultural gospel" risk marginalization by the New Mainstream, a dynamic fusion of the "creative class," non-European immigrants and native-born American consumers with rapidly changing tastes and habits. At times, Garcia risks reducing culture to market forces and people to consumers ("for the new multicultural consumer, making and spending money is nothing less than a sacred, life-affirming act"). However, he works enough skepticism and detail into his argument to avoid flattening himself with it, mobilizing an impressively broad knowledge of cultures-popular, folk and high-and a lively sense of history. He warns that "ethnocentric nativism" and xenophobic policies, whether fueled by economic, cultural or terror-driven fears, can only damage the American corporation and nation. Garcia is at his best juggling a diverse range of examples of U.S. multiculturalism-Walt Whitman, 50 Cent, Octavio Paz, Shakira and Craig's List, to name a few-to make the argument that diversity is, more than ever, the dynamo driving American capitalism, and businesses had best take heed. (Sept.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Soundview Executive Book Summaries - Summary

A new America is emerging. Its population and culture are more diverse than ever before and it is more connected to the outside world than ever before. As the multiculturalism of Hispanics, African Americans, Asians and new immigrants comes together, they forge a New Mainstream-based culture and economy that will soon overcome the Anglocentric "Old" Mainstream. Today, 80 million African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians make up more than one fourth of the country and spend more than $1.2 trillion a year. By 2050, non-Anglos will grow to 47.2 percent of the population. Corporations, politicians, institutions and the media will not only have to accept and understand the New Mainstream, but they will have to embrace it and become part of it. The one constant in American culture is commerce, and to understand where the economy is heading, people will have to understand who determines it and makes it up.

In The New Mainstream, journalist and multimedia entrepreneur Guy Garcia offers a wake-up call and a road map to the new multicultural reality in America, creating a corporate survival guide for the uncharted markets of the 21st century.

The New Mainstream is an unprecedented intersection of demographic, cultural and economic forces remodeling American society. As population trends and profit-driven interests converge, a third force, the "creative class," will join them to create and maintain the infrastructures, system and content of the information age. It is the antithesis of the old ethnocentric nativism that many people believe is the true and threatened America. It thrives on the diversity of ethnicity, but also on the diversity of consumers. Companies that recognize and enter the New Mainstream instead of holding back or treating it like a separate entity will propel the economy of the future.

Ethnicity Inc.
The New Mainstream is causing a shift in culture that will change the economic and business landscape. Marketers learned long ago to translate their commercials into Spanish and show Asians on their billboards, but race is only one indicator of cultural and ethnic differences. Latinos come from many different countries, and in the United States, they have different preferences based on whether they are native-born or immigrants, whether they are speaking English or Spanish, or both. Eventually these differences will disappear.

Diversity initiatives and in-culture knowledge will be unnecessary components of strategy, because the New Mainstream will be the strategy. Panethnicity will be the norm and there will be no need for companies to study the likes and dislikes of different ethnicities. The cultural convergence of companies, marketers and decision makers will be built in, because they will be converged ethnicities.

Latino Growth Opportunity
By 2008, the projected growth for Latinos is 315 percent, for African Americans is 170 percent, for Asians is 287 percent, and the numbers of Native Americans and gays and lesbians will grow as well. Companies must jump on these trends now.

Fannie Mae realized that owning a home in the United States is the single most important generator of wealth, and though natural-born ethnicities equate it with stability, security and permanence, foreign-born immigrants have an even stronger desire to own a home. Fannie Mae leveraged that knowledge to market to immigrant ethnicities, who are already more likely to own homes than their native counterparts.