In Anglo-America there are three major ethnic groups. The first is the original Indian pop

ulation, who today represents a minority group. The second is the descendants of European colonists who emigrated to the two countries before the end of the nineteenth century. These majority populations normally speak English, are highly-educated, and most of them are culturally homogeneous (同类的) in broad cultural values. A third group is made up of ethnic minorities, from Asia, Latin America, Africa, or parts of Europe who have either linguistic, religious, racial, or other cultural attributes that distinguish them from the majority population.

The United States has a varied ethnic minority pattern, without the dominance of one minority group in a specific geographical area. The largest ethnic group in America is the blacks, totaling an estimated 26 million in 1980, or 12 percent of the population. Unlike the French, the black population of the United States is not culturally and geographically isolated in one area. Slightly more than half of American blacks live in the South, and 49 percent reside in the East and the West. The black American speaks English, has a tendency to share, the characteristics of competition, materialism, and individualism with other United States citizens, and has no distinctive religion.

The Spanish-speaking minority in America is reluctant to adopt the values of the dominant cultural group. There is increasingly a demand for bilingual (双语的) education to allow Spanishspeaking children to use English in their educational programs. The existence of a large and growing minority population such as the Spanish-speaking Americans, who are increasingly committed to their own food and newspapers in Latin, is one of the issues facing Anglo-America in the future. The old concept of a melting pot is being replaced by the concept of a plural society.

From the context, we know that "attributes" (Para. 1) means

A．similarities of ethnic groups.

B．qualities belonging to ethnic minorities.

C．differences between ethnic minorities.

D．relationships among ethnic groups.