A lot of people made references to 1968 this week after Barack Obama clinched the Democratic nomination. There was a lot of "Forty years ago no one would have believed this could happen" and so on.

I think that's true. But it's also true that the events of the 1950s and 1960s gave birth to the nation we are beginning to see today.

My son Max is in Kindergarten. I couldn't tell you the exact make-up of his school except to say with certainty that the majority of kids are non-gringo. More than that, a significant percentage of the kids are multi-ethnic. In our small corner of one of the 10 most affluent counties in America, this fact surprises no one. In fact, it is a fact that the kids find completely unremarkable.

Max and friends are well aware that some of them are tall and some are short. Some have curly hair and some have straight hair. Some have pink skin, some have tan skin and some have brown skin.

Among Max's generation, it seems that brown is, indeed, the new black.

The kids recognize their differences, but they don't seem to pay much attention to them. They're more worried about who has what toys and other more important things. To them, skin color isn't anything different than hair color. And while most of America doesn't resemble southeastern Montgomery County (easily the brownest and least-affluent part of the county), it's getting that way. Fast.

Demographics in America have always shifted rapidly due to massive immigration, but in the first 150 years or so most of those immigrants were European. The Chinese were the first real "interlopers," and even though we loved their work on the railroads in the 1850s, it wasn't until the mid 1960s that we started to allow a reasonable amount of Asian immigrants into our country.

Likewise, for decades folks in the southwestern United States managed an open border with Mexico. A large number of migrant workers came across and went back home with their earnings. Most of them worked right along the border or in the massive fields and orchards of the south and west. Most of the country didn't notice.

But once the economic imbalance hit a tipping point, laborers from Mexico and Central America poured into all corners of the United States. These workers provided the labor that built the housing boom of the last 10 years, and they're also doing a large portion of highway building and other infrastructure work. Not unlike the Chinese of 150 years ago. And unlike the "guest workers" of the past, a lot of these families have been staying--legally or not.

America is becoming browner, and that's not going to change. What is changing is that most young people don't care. They want their country to be a great nation, and they're not particularly concerned about what the citizens of that nation look like. The idea of a black president might be a novelty today, but in 50 years it won't be. Jackie Robinson integrated the Major Leagues 60 years ago. Back then, professional sports was a niche market. Now it's a dominant force in entertainment. It's safe to say that the integration of sports has been a net plus. The integration of the White House (gender-wise as well as race) will be a net plus as well. The larger the talent pool, the better chances you'll get a good president. The current Prez is the poster child for the rejection of "purebred" political genes.

We are where we are today because of the suffragists and the civil rights leaders and everyone else who has pushed for change. It takes a while for real change to take root. Sometimes you have to let the old folks die before change becomes apparent. That may be cruel, but it happens to be true. Look at the current polling on gay marriage. In 20 years, a vast majority of Americans will favor gay marriage. We just have to wait for a few folks to kick off.

Despite a worrisome trend toward self-segregation in some areas, the truth is that in more and more parts of the country, schools and communities are beginning to resemble Martin Luther King's dream of black children and white children (and brown children and tan children) sitting next to each other and making friends. The kids in Max's school already do. And when they grow up, they will vote for the president they believe will be the best. They will vote for the person--not the gender or race--because that's how they've grown up. That's how they will live.

And that is the America a lot of us have been hoping to see.

Jon Worley lives in the granola capital of the east coast.