EMANUEL RANSOM: When I first came to Clarkston, the Ku Klux Klan used to march in front of my house.

MARIA HINOJOSA: Today, small-town Georgia has changed in some unexpected ways.

We're sisters, you know, we were separated at birth.

HINOJOSA: Now whites are in the minority in Clarkston, and it's home to refugees from over 40 different countries.

GRAHAM THOMAS: You wonder if I've got any buddies anymore that think the way I do.

Should white America be afraid of becoming a minority?

This is the new America-- black, brown, Asian, LGBT, immigrants.

The country is going through a major demographic shift and the numbers show it.

The face of the U.S. has changed.

CHRISTINA IBANEZ: We're American.

We care about the same things.

But yet we also want to preserve our culture.

I just see it destroying what we had planned to happen here.

HINOJOSA: By 2043, we will be a majority non-white nation.

NORM GISSEL: We are making, as we speak, a new America.

And it's a marvelous moment in American history.

Everybody's voice is important to this debate.

HINOJOSA: Am erica by the Numbers.

I'm Maria Hinojosa.

This program was made possible in part by: We're living through the largest demographic change in U.S. history.

We asked social trend tracker Guy Garcia to help us make sense of the latest census numbers.

Guy is an expert on "the new mainstream."

The new mainstream is the combination of great demographic changes, explosions in the populations of African Americans, Asians and Latinos, even to a certain extent women, young people, LGBTs.

110 million African Americans, Asians, and Hispanics with buying power that exceeds $2 trillion.

Today, already, one in three Americans are multicultural.

When you look at the population under 18, it's already closer to a one-to-one ratio.

It's going to change the way we eat, the way we work, the way we play, and most certainly the way we vote.

HINOJOSA: As the demographics shift, so does our electoral map.

The share of white voters is shrinking, while the share of black, Latino and Asian voters is growing.

Should white America be afraid of becoming a minority?

They should only be afraid of becoming a minority if it's within the old definition of what a minority means: marginalized, left out, disenfranchised.

The new mainstream is inclusive; everybody is welcome to the new mainstream.

America has always been redefining itself.

The unfinished pyramid that the Founding Fathers constructed, the idea behind it was that America was a republic that would only be completed by the people who came after.

It used to be that this idea of the new America was happening in urban places: Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Chicago.

It's everywhere.

In fact, most of the steepest growth of multicultural populations in the 2010 census were places like Idaho, Iowa, Georgia.

HINOJOSA: And in Georgia and the rest of the South, this change is happening faster than any other part of the country.

Over the last ten years, it's the South that's had the greatest multicultural growth.

This new multicultural America is not what's next.

It's now.

(singing in foreign language) HINOJOSA: Welcome to the new American South, where these numbers live and breathe.

By 1990, whites had become the minority in Clarkston, Georgia, and now it's home to refugees from all over the world.

By the numbers, it's one of America's most diverse square miles, a laboratory for the future.

I wanted to see what democracy means to some of the newest Americans living here.

It's really exciting to be here with all these babies being born.

And they're all so different, from so many different countries.

It's pretty incredible.

Congratulations!

Thank you.

So what's the name of the new baby?

HINOJOSA: Baby Benjamin Ngo Thun is a brand new American.

His parents fled the repression of a Burmese military junta and moved to Clarkston in 2008.

Today, they celebrate their second child born in the USA.

What do you dream about Benjamin's future as an American?

You want him to be president.

Is that your idea or your idea?

Why do you want Benjamin to be president of the United States?

HINOJOSA: Sharing a name with one of America's Founding Fathers, Benjamin is a bridge from his parents' politically persecuted past to a wide open future.

In this Ellis Island of the South, could there be lessons about what democracy means in our multicultural America?

LEONETTI: We're sisters, you know.

We were separated at birth.

We tell everybody.

Yeah.

HINOJOSA: Clarkston is just outside of Atlanta, Georgia, and was hand-picked by refugee resettlement agencies because it had affordable housing and there's public transportation to nearby jobs.

Since the early '80s, nearly 10,000 refugees from Vietnam and Somalia, Iraq, Bhutan, and some 40 other countries have come here to escape war, repression and massacre.

What is this here?

These were your children?

She's got a bullet in her hip too.

Another knife wound here too?

And they felt the pulse?

HINOJOSA: Like Amina Osman, who came from Somalia, many refugees in Clarkston are recovering from the trauma of displacement and war, and are struggling with a new language.

They're welcomed to this country as legal immigrants, on track to become U.S. citizens within five years.

Most receive up to six months of federal assistance, including cash and medical benefits, but then are expected to provide for themselves.

It's a big adjustment for the Clarkston natives too.

In three decades, this city of 7,600 has gone from being 89% white to 82% non-white.

And the whites were moving out, and change was very threatening to them.

It puts a lot of stress on a city.

It puts a lot of stress on people in the city, on our infrastructure, on our police.

It's a huge problem.

HINOJOSA: Clarkston has faced its share of change before.

Originally belonging to the Cherokee people, it was later settled by poor farmers of British descent.

And for most of its modern history, Clarkston was overwhelmingly white.

There was a sense before that someone like you-- a black man from the North-- represented serious change.

I can identify with a lot of people in this city because what they're going through, I've been through, and what I've been through, they're getting ready to go through.

Prejudice's head has never stopped being raised in this town.

It's quiet.

I call it closet prejudice.

HINOJOSA: Emanuel Ransom grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia.

He moved to Clarkston in 1964, the year after Martin Luther King marched on Washington.

When I first came to Clarkston, the Ku Klux Klan used to march in front of my house right down here off of Ponce de Leon.

The black neighborhood used to be across the tracks there.

HINOJOSA: Was the city council all white men?

Yes.

- Was the mayor a white man?

- Yes.

And did you feel like you were excluded?

Yes.

HINOJOSA: Clarkston is nestled in the shadow of Stone Mountain, where the Ku Klux Klan was re-established in 1915.

The side of the mountain where the Klan staged cross burnings until 1991 is still carved with the busts of the fathers of the Confederacy.

When I was a kid, my daddy used to take me out to Stone Mountain and we watched the Ku Klux Klan.

And they would take an old car up on top of the mountain, set it on fire, push it off the front of the mountain.

And everybody'd scream and holler.

You talking about exciting!

HINOJOSA: Graham Thomas grew up in nearby Decatur, Georgia, and moved to Clarkston in the 1990s.

Your dad took you to see Ku Klux Klan rallies?

Oh yeah.

He was not a Ku Klux Klanner, he was from New Jersey, matter of fact.

He was, as we call down here, a Yankee.

But he took me out there to see those things going on and I thought, "What a bunch of nuts."

HINOJOSA: The seismic shift began in the 1980s.

Clarkston went from being 97% American born to 46% foreign born.

Now Stone Mountain is an amusement park.

And in 2010, Emanuel Ransom became Clarkston's first African-American mayor.

What does it mean for you to be in a place like Stone Mountain now?

Well, it means that times change.

HINOJOSA: For Emanuel Ransom, change has been a good thing.

(saxophone music) For Graham Thomas, a Juilliard-trained jazz musician, maybe not so much.

Have you ever thought that in your town here in Clarkston, that you and your wife, your family are now the minority?

THOMAS: Oh, certainly.

Here we are the minority.

HINOJOSA: And what does that feel like for you, a white man, from the South?

THOMAS: Yeah, an old Southern boy.

You wonder sometimes if I've got any buddies anymore, like, you know, that think the way I do.

♪ ♪ That's enough, isn't it?

HINOJOSA: The convergence of the old and new South has never been smooth.

It was no exception when the refugees started arriving in Clarkston.

THOMAS: It's just destroyed the way of life, so to speak.

They dump them in these apartments some time and don't tell them how to light the stove.

They build a fire in the middle of the floor, and burn the apartments, or they'll drink out of the commode.

They need to be taught the American way, so that they don't goof up.

I've heard this a couple of times now, that the refugees build fires in their living rooms to cook-- has anybody actually seen that?

No, that's just hearsay.

You said that you've heard that they drink water out of toilets?

Yeah...

I don't know if that's a fact.

I'm just hearing it from the people that say it.

I'm probably a racist or a redneck or something, I don't know, but I just see it destroying what we had planned to happen here.

Why would you say that you're a racist or a redneck?

Because maybe I shouldn't feel that way.

Maybe I shouldn't feel that way.

I don't mind helping people.

I'm not upset about them coming here.

I think they just need to be distributed more equally.

Don't dump so many in one square mile of space.

Spread it around.

HINOJOSA: Graham came to Clarkston to take advantage of low-priced real estate.

He bought and renovated three houses, hoping they would increase in value.

But they're now worth half of what he paid for them.

And I shouldn't gripe about all this, becausit's helping somebody, but my little nest egg here, so to speak, seems to be in jeopardy.

HINOJOSA: Clarkston's economy is struggling.

Since refugees started arriving here, unemployment has risen to more than twice the national average.

And about 37% of Clarkston's residents live below the poverty line.

In spite of these statistics, many of the new Americans I met are putting down roots.

Refugees and immigrants now own about 85% of Clarkston's businesses.

Hijab?

HINOJOSA: Omar Shekey is the president of the Somali American Community Center.

Somalis started arriving in Clarkston in the 1990s and now are one of the largest groups of refugees here.

HINOJOSA: Omar helps newly arrived Somalis transition into life in the U.S.

It's like being in Little Somalia.

For mayor?

For mayor of the city of Clarkston.

So you have big dreams!

Do you ever have other Americans who come here?

What about white Americans?

Do you ever see them here?

What do you think about that?

HINOJOSA: The numbers bear this out.

80% of refugee households in Georgia are indeed working-- and paying U.S. taxes-- within six months of their resettlement.

Most Americans are not spending their days talking about the Constitution.

But for you.

The Constitution is alive.

HINOJOSA: At Clarkston's monthly city council meeting, a rainbow of new Americans and long-time residents lined up to make their voices heard.

HINOJOSA: Despite the diversity of voices at the mike and within the community, in 2012, the Clarkston city council was all white.

We are here tonight to witness the swearing in of three council members who were voted in with only 13% of voters showing up at the polls.

That means around 83% of the registered voters potentially chose not to show up to vote.

We all should be asking ourselves why.

Together we need to figure out a way to improve civic engagement, and to move this city forward.

RANSOM: All right, well, we're going to move forward with our agenda and we're going to get our officials sworn in so we can have a quorum.

When nobody registered except for the six people who were all white Americans, I was very disappointed.

We, as a council, have to do something about it.

It's not going to change itself.

We have to change it.

Welcome, my name is Habon Abdillahi.

I'm the moderator for today's panel on Sagal Radio.

HINOJOSA: The conversation among community leaders continued a few days later at the refugee-run radio station.

ABDILLAHI: We here in Clarkston, we live in a town that has a huge refugee population.

No one on the Clarkson City Council is from the refugee community.

I've spoken to large groups begging them to run for council.

And I got no response.

HINOJOSA: At least one former refugee I met overcame that fear when the city council election came around.

ABDILLAHI: Dianne, so we know that your campaign manager, on your recent reelection, was Amina Osman, a Somalian refugee.

It was all through her, she was the genius of it all, and it was really fun.

You are Dianne's campaign manager?

Self-appointed, and then I totally agree.

(laughs) She told you, "I'm going to be your campaign manager?"

That's right.

She says, "You stick with me and you will get elected."

She decided that I needed postcards with my picture on it, so she could hand it out and people could remember who I was.

And she decided she needed a t-shirt to wear all over the place with my picture on it.

HINOJOSA: In a field of white candidates, Amina Osman became a real power broker behind the scenes.

You understood that part of what you needed to do as a smart politician was to get the vote of these former refugees.

It was Amina's idea.

Honest to gosh, I'm not taking credit for it.

And, in fact, Dianne, you ended up getting the largest number of votes.

That was my secret weapon.

Hello, how are you?

Priteonetti might just be a shrewd politician, but she says she's hoping to bridge the divide between old and new Americans in Clarkston, with Amina by her side.

What doors was she opening for you?

LEONETTI: Oh just to meet more people and to see what their vision for Clarkston was, see what their vision for America was.

She said "Come meet this guy, he wants to meet you, he's from south Sudan."

And I think it was the first time that anybody really reached out to really want to know, "What are you thinking?

"Where's your heart?

What's going on in your life?"

Even though you were Dianne's campaign manager, you couldn't vote for her?

(singing in foreign language) HINOJOSA: Every Saturday and Sunday morning in a makeshift Hindu-Buddhist temple that doubles as a classroom, Birendra Dhakal's citizenship classes are packed with Bhutanese refugees working to gain the right to vote.

HINOJOSA: What does it mean to you to have this many people here wanting to learn about becoming American citizens?

HINOJOSA: Birendra was the first refugee from Bhutan to settle in Clarkston.

His goal now is to help every one of his fellow Bhutanese make the transition he just made to become a U.S. citizen and a voter.

Are you the only one registering?

Or is everyone registering?

Everyone.

Mm-hmm.

HINOJOSA: What does that mean to go in, cast a ballot, for someone like you?

HINOJOSA: In this new America, listening, being open to cultures and adapting to change seems to be a two-way street.

I saw it first hand at one of the few white-owned businesses left in Clarkston.

If you hadn't been open to change, do you think that Thrift Town would have survived?

No.

HINOJOSA: 15 years ago, Bill and Karen Mehlinger's Thrift Town grocery was on the verge of going out of business.

As more and more refugees arrived, the Mehlingers hired a Vietnamese cashier-- and that was just the beginning.

HINOJOSA: What was your first reaction when you saw that Clarkston was changing?

What is your biggest business day?

HINOJOSA: Do you think that our country is a country that is open and prepared for that kind of change?

Do you understand fear, and people say, "I don't understand them"?

Well, they don't understand us, so imagine their fear.

HINOJOSA: Clarkston's first black mayor says he had to overcome some fears of his own.

You, in fact, said that you originally wanted to get involved with city politics in Clarkston because you had a problem with the refugee population.

Yes, I was very concerned.

The federal government is taking all these people that have been persecuted in different countries and they're plopping them down here in Clarkston.

And we know nothing about them.

How are we going to deal with them?

Now the fact that you, at one point, as a black man, looked at this international community and said, "I don't know if you all have a place here."

It makes me feel like an ass, actually, because I knew better.

Our refugee community is the majority now, and how are you going to survive without them?

HINOJOSA: And the impact of foreign-born Americans is not only being felt in Clarkston.

Nearly nine million have naturalized as U.S. citizens since the year 2000, and they now make up over 8% of the voting age population.

If they turn out at the polls, new Americans could be critical to the outcome of future elections, especially in states described as "swing" states.

But here's the twist: the new citizens I met-- just like the old-- are pretty hard to pigeonhole.

SUJAL DHAKAL: I'm strictly Ron Paul.

I think I'm for him, less government power.

DORA DHAKAL: For me the big issues are health care.

So I guess I would go towards Democrat.

LEONETTI: Yeah, I'm pretty socially conservative.

So, do you support the Tea Party?

Yeah, I would.

Do you talk about these things?

She knows my views.

I like the Democrats.

You like the Democrats?

And you don't want to convince Amina?

No.

But she's your campaign manager.

Yeah.

HINOJOSA: Now, what would happen, Graham, if a refugee decides that they want to run for mayor?

That'd be fine.

I hope he could handle the job.

If he can handle it, that's all right with me.

But, I probably wouldn't vote for him unless I could get some assurance that he knows what he's doing.

Will you run for office, Amina?

You're going to be the mayor?

Did you know that, Dianne?

No, that's news to me.

Why not?

HINOJOSA: I returned to Clarkston in 2013 to witness history in the making.

In the local election, three former refugees have decided to run for office.

HELEN HO: We have to do everything we can to make sure minority citizens are out and voting.

THOMAS: They'll be controlling what's happening here instead of the people that have lived here a long time.

HINOJOSA: Coming soon on America by the Numbers... Next time: Guam.

A population of unsung American warriors in the Pacific.

MAGGIE AGUON: Boom, you're going to war.

But when we come back, what happens to us?

ROLAND ADA: I can't get the help that I need.

And I need the help now.

HINOJOSA: To learn more about this and other episodes of America by the Numbers with Maria Hinojosa, please visit pbs.org.

America by the Numbers with Maria Hinojosa is available on DVD.

To order, visit shoppbs.org, or call 1-800-PLAY-PBS.