UCLA freshman Karina Hernandez doesn't recall ever encountering discrimination as a Latina, and says she isn't especially concerned with the issue of race and ethnic relations.
"For me, the racial boundaries are not there," said Hernandez, an 18-year-old from Ontario planning to major in aerospace engineering.
Hernandez provides one explanation for a key conclusion drawn from a new survey of the nation's college freshmen: They are less preoccupied with race and ethnicity.
The survey, being released today by UCLA researchers, found that a record high 22.7% of freshmen said racial discrimination was no longer a major problem in America.
In addition, just 29.7% of the nation's college freshmen characterized "helping to promote racial understanding" as an essential or very important personal goal. That was the lowest level ever in the 28 years that the poll has raised the question.
UCLA researchers said freshmen who have had encouraging experiences such as Hernandez's -- growing up with friends of different racial and ethnic backgrounds -- partly explain the diminished concern about racial issues.
"Their comfort level has developed with people who are different from them, and they carry those relationships into college," said Sylvia Hurtado, director of UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute and a coauthor of the survey report.
Hurtado said many freshmen who attended largely segregated high schools, particularly whites, haven't been exposed to racial inequities that could generate greater concern about race relations.
On balance, Hurtado said, the freshman views on race were troubling.
"There are different groups in society experiencing life differently in the United States, and that's always historically been the case," she said. "If they don't see these issues as important, we won't be able to change that."
Student leaders and other undergraduates offered varying reactions to the results.
Diana Flynn, editor in chief of the student newspaper at the flagship campus of the University of Connecticut, said undergraduates feel less apprehensive than their parents did about dealing with people of other races and ethnicities. "Our comfort level has increased, so race is something we're not as conscious of anymore," said Flynn, who is white.
