The first essay by Mikaila Mariel Lemonik Arthur begins with an outline of the demographic condition of racial groups in the United States and the history of classifications used by the Census Bureau. Arthur also provides a general overview of racial and ethnic developments in such areas as education and economics, topics that are developed more fully in the subsequent group of essays. Two general theories on racial and ethnic identification are reviewed by Cynthia Vejar and Cheryl Bourassa: primordialism, which alludes to the “intrinsic sense of pride, dedication, and emotion,” and situational and symbolic ethnicity, which is based on how people identify simultaneously with both a group and a mainstream culture. Related to this issue is Ilanna Mandel’s essay on the concept of “cultural pluralism” or the way “distinct groups maintain their own unique identity within a much larger society.” These introductory essays provide a general overview of the range of issues surrounding ethnic identification.