Family disintegration and neighborhood violence are more distressing to California's teens and young adults than global warming or war, according to a new poll that aimed to take the pulse of Generation Next.
The survey of 600 California residents ages 16 to 22 commissioned by New America Media is one of the first to track down youths -- notoriously difficult survey targets -- solely by cell phone. It found that they are inwardly focused -- on their future marriages, parenthood, homeownership, education and communities.
Asked what they consider the most pressing issue facing their generation, 24 percent of those surveyed last fall said "family breakdown," 22 percent cited neighborhood violence, 17 percent named poverty and 14 percent named global warming. Just 3 percent cited war and violence throughout the world.
"This is a segment of the population that we think of as growing up to be like us. But in truth, they are who we're becoming," said Sandy Close, executive director of New America Media. Her Bay Area-based association of more than 700 ethnic media outlets nationwide also includes youth publications and Web logs.
In interviews Tuesday, young people who responded to the survey expressed more complex concerns than those captured by pollsters.
"The biggest challenge that faces my generation is for people to do the right thing," said Eric Beltran, a 19-year-old warehouse worker who lives in Livermore. "Most people take the wrong path. This happens because people get influenced by other people. That's why they end up taking drugs, selling drugs, robbing and even killing people."
"What jumped out at me in this poll," Close said, "is this yearning for traditional support structures. It's the ways people connect to each other, like family, like parenthood, like religion. I've found over the years their deepest fear is winding up alone."
Family psychotherapist and author Isolina Ricci of Tiburon, who specializes in guiding parents and children through divorce, was not surprised that family disintegration was a top concern considering that divorce, remarriage, cohabitation, domestic violence and addiction affect many modern families at some point.
"It also may be that some young people are concerned about the fast pace of life, that it is bleeding away opportunities for closeness," Ricci said. "There is hardly any family time."
It's not all bad. Nationally, the divorce rate is leveling off, and 67 percent of children younger than 18 live with married parents or stepparents. The survey reflects those happier realities: 89 percent of the respondents said they were very or somewhat likely to get married or have a life partner and have children some day.
"Marriage is a good thing," said survey respondent Edmond Ho, 21, a student in San Diego. "But with the very high rate of divorce these days, it is turning into a very bad thing. I think people need to know each other better before they get married."
When the poll results were broken down by race, they showed that African American and Latino youths were more worried about community violence than family problems.
"It all depends on who you are talking to," said Gwendolyn Smith with Literacy for Environmental Justice, a youth empowerment and environmental health group working with urban school kids in San Francisco's Bayview-Hunters Point, where about one-third of the city's African Americans live.
"Here we are talking about low-income kids, and they have bigger issues (than global warming) -- such as eating every day, being shot up, harassed by cops, toxic waste dumps," Smith said.
Nearly half the survey respondents were immigrants or the children of immigrants. About 37 percent of the youth polled identified as Latino, 37 percent white, 10 percent Asian, 5 percent African American and 1 percent American Indian.
Even though global warming wasn't a top concern of today's young Californians, Denis Hayes, who coordinated the first Earth Day in 1970, said he was pleased the problem at least made it into their top four. The environmental movement needs them, he said. Historically, young people have led the most sweeping social changes, he said.
"But my impression is, by and large this tends to be a generation that is distrustful of politics and, much more likely than my generation, will go out and pitch in and build a house for Habitat for Humanity or build a park for Earth Day than work for the passage of a Clean Air act or for a politician," said Hayes, who now works with an organization in Seattle dedicated to renewable energy. "They tend to be really focused on the things that they can do that have an immediate consequence. It's a wonderful thing, but we also have some national issues that need to be resolved."
Poll respondent Melissa Redmond, 20, of Kensington, who attends Contra Costa College, said she really cares about global warming as well as the war in Iraq. "But things seem to be heading for the worst. It is very depressing."
New America Media's poll mirrors findings of other youth polls, including a survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press released earlier this year that found 18- to 25-year-olds were generally happy with their lives and optimistic about their futures. Both Pew and New America Media conducted their surveys last fall.
The survey results being released today found that, despite California's high housing prices and growing college tuition costs, young people believe they'll go to college and have a higher standard of living than their parents.
"I do not think my generation faces any challenges. Nothing is impossible," said Chris Chong, 19, a student at East Los Angeles College who answered the survey. "If you choose to overcome any difficulty, you will do it."
"I think I will be richer than my parents because I have a better job. I grew up in the States and I have more benefits," said Beltran, whose mother grew up in Mexico.
Young people have very modern views on diversity, Close said. Just 1 percent listed racism or discrimination as the most pressing issue facing their generation. More than half the white and Asian youths, and just under half of the Latino and African American respondents said most of their friends are a different race or ethnicity. And 87 percent of all respondents said they would marry or enter a life partnership with someone of a different race.
The concerns of California youths
What do you think causes young people like you the most stress?
School, 33 percent; money, 22 percent; personal relationships, 12 percent; peer pressure, 11 percent; parents, 6 percent; drugs or alcohol, 5 percent; loneliness, 2 percent; work, 2 percent; other, 7 percent.
Which of these is the most important characteristic that defines your identity?
Race or ethnicity, 29 percent; music or fashion preference, 27 percent; religion, 16 percent; personality, 10 percent; sexual orientation, 3 percent; intelligence or education, 2 percent; family or friends, 1 percent; other, 3 percent.
Note: Respondents were given multiple choices to answer each question and could choose only one.
Source: "California Dreamers," New America Media
E-mail the writers at ilelchuk@sfchronicle.com and aemam@sfchronicle.com.
