Little did Samuel Huntington know, when he published a book called Who we are: The Challenges to America’s National Identity in 2004, that later that year, a young black man called Barack Obama would dazzle the nation at the Democratic National Convention by defining himself as the ultimate example of the American Dream. Obama’s interpretation of Americans couldn’t have been more different from the renowned Huntington — while the latter believed that immigration was taking America away from its core values which were build on a decidedly Anglo-Protestant ethic, the former believed that America is truly the land of possibilities where the son of an immigrant could rise to become a senator, now President.

Ironically, those who vehemently disagree with Huntington — as I’m sure Barack “Barry” Obama would — use the very strength of America’s social and political institutions as the reason for people coming to America in the first place. America is not the world’s leader because it is a country of white people, they say, but because it believes in freedom and liberty, and that all men are created equal.

To be fair to Huntington, and as the Economist put it, this is a “rational expression of a rational fear”. Watchers of American politics haven’t yet wrapped their head around the fact that a black president will mean that America will no longer be perceived as a white nation — or have they? The concern is not simply about black, Asians or Hispanics cracking glass ceilings; it is about the influx of communities who are slow to assimilate with American culture on the whole. The US census bureau reports that by 2042, what are minority groups today will form the majority of America’s population. The Hispanic population, today at around 43 million, is expected to rise to 133 million by 2050.

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