Each time she sees the word ``Caucasian'' in her students' essays on race, Wei Ming Dariotis crosses it out. But she has concluded that trying to stem the linguistic tide is as futile as trying to tame the sea.

Her ethnic studies college students keep on using the word, which they view as a progressive alternative to ``white.'' The term reminds Dariotis of Caucasoid, Negroid and Mongoloid -- words she associates with 19th-century scientists who believed whites were a superior race.

The language of race is constantly evolving, reflecting changing sensitivities and tastes. And in contemporary California, where the population is surging and shifting with breathtaking speed, people are once again grasping for new words to describe new racial realities.

More and more people are saying ``people of color'' instead of ``minorities.'' And many are embracing the terms ``Caucasian'' or ``European-American'' as alternatives to ``white.''

It is no surprise that such shifts would be occurring at this time, in this place, according to linguists, ethnic studies teachers and diversity trainers. California's white population stands on the brink of losing its majority status; the old racial hierarchy is giving way to a new multicultural reality.

``There is a sense of flux and a heightened awareness about these kinds of distinctions,'' said Matthew Frye Jacobson, an associate professor of American studies and history at Yale University and author of ``Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race.''

John Baugh, a linguist at Stanford University, sees such linguistic shifts as part of a ``colorblind quest'' on which many Americans have embarked as they strive to achieve fairness in the realm of race relations: ``The people using these terms are trying to be respectful of the feelings of the person they are describing.''

Seeking cultural link

The terms ``European-American'' and ``Caucasian'' probably gained greater currency as whites sought an equivalent term for African-American -- one that linked them to a culture and a place, not just a color, Baugh said.

To Aga Goodsell, a San Jose engineer, ``European-American'' doesn't accurately describe the millions of white Americans whose families have lived in the United States for generations and who don't feel any strong connection to Europe or their ethnic heritage. Goodsell, 35, has been using the word Caucasian for the past year or two.

``Just labeling someone as white or black is too harsh,'' said Goodsell, who describes herself as half-Korean, half-Caucasian. ``Those terms are unrealistic. No black person is just black, and no Caucasian person is just white.''

Rance Bobo, an engineering student from San Jose, uses the term Caucasian when he wants to convey respect. He likes its formal ring.

``If I'm in a business meeting, I use the word Caucasian,'' said Bobo, who is half-Haitian, half-Jamaican. ``But if there's a white person in the room and they say white, I don't have to say Caucasian.''

Carol Torgrimson, a Mountain View resident, has been using ``Caucasian'' to describe herself and others for years. To define people as black and white, she believes, is polarizing. ``I think we're closer together than those terms imply.''

But if it is easy to find people who embrace the word Caucasian, it is at least as easy to find others who think it sounds jarring, racist or silly.

``Caucasian sounds like crustacean,'' said Anethra Moura, a white sophomore at San Jose State University who says the term white is perfectly fine.

Rosalind Bivings, a Mountain View businesswoman who is African-American, hears many of her white friends saying ``European-American'' and ``Caucasian.'' She thinks they long to have the same sense of group identity and culture that many non-whites proudly claim.

``It's vogue,'' she said, ``to say, `` `I'm Irish-American, not just white.' Or, `I'm Polish-American, not just white.' ''

White-Caucasian debate

To Dariotis, the ethnic studies teacher, Caucasian has a white supremacist ring. Dariotis jumped into a spirited debate over the merits and demerits of the word that recently erupted on an e-mail list maintained by the Hapa Issues Forum, a Berkeley-based organization of mixed-race Asians. Many who leave postings on the list use ``Caucasian.''

``People are self-conscious about the term white,'' said Dariotis, whose ancestry blends Chinese, Greek, English, Swedish and German. ``It's associated with white power.''

Dariotis, who teaches at San Francisco State and Foothill College, prefers ``European-American'' because it emphasizes ethnic heritage and de-emphasizes race.

The word Caucasian was introduced in the late 18th century by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, a German naturalist. Just as biologists before him had begun categorizing the varieties of plants and animals, Blumenbach and other scientists had begun trying to define the varieties of human beings. He divided them into five categories: Caucasians, Mongolians, Ethiopians, Americans and Malays.

He named Caucasians after the peoples of the Caucasus, a region of Europe between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, along the borders of Georgia and Russia.

Audrey Smedley, an anthropologist at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, says Blumenbach simply was trying to find a scientific, neutral way to describe whites. But the 19th-century American scientists who began using a similar phrase -- Caucasoid -- did believe that blacks were an inferior race.

The language of race is always changing, reflecting the changing philosophies of the people who use it, said Ralph Fasold, a professor of linguistics at Georgetown University. Words that once sounded progressive gradually become taboo. And sometimes, words that sounded taboo come to sound acceptable.

``We used to speak of `colored people,' but that became unacceptable. Then people said let's use the technical term `Negro,' but that became unacceptable,'' Fasold said.

Then, during the black power movement of the 1960s, the term black, once regarded as an insult, came to sound progressive. Although still widely used, it now competes with African-American as the name of choice.

Even though it bears a striking resemblance to the outmoded ``colored people,'' many people have come to regard ``people of color'' as a progressive alternative for ``minorities,'' a term they view as obsolete in an age in which no group will constitute a majority.

Even Vice President Al Gore has picked up on the phrase, which he sprinkled liberally throughout a recent address to nearly 6,000 black, Latino, Asian and American Indian journalists who had gathered for a convention in Seattle.

Elaine Howard, a sophomore at the University of California-Berkeley, isn't entirely comfortable with ``people of color,'' but she prefers it to minority.

``I hate saying `minority,' '' said Howard, who describes herself as half-white, half-Tongan. ``It's demeaning. It's saying, `Your group is small.' That makes me feel small.''

Not ideal

Dariotis, the ethnic studies professor, likes the inclusiveness of ``people of color,'' but says it's imperfect. White is a color, too, she said. ``All people are people of color.''

It is impossible to know how many people are using ``Caucasian'' or ``people of color,'' and impossible to know how widespread they will become. But they seem to be most widely used by liberal whites, who are eager not to offend members of other racial groups, and by non-whites who, after a lifetime of being labeled, are particularly sensitive to racial designations.

The term European-American, however, also has been embraced by more conservative whites who believe that all whites have been lumped together, stripped of their heritage and unfairly blamed for causing the nation's racial ills.

James Roszell, president of the European American Firefighters Association, a new San Jose group, says the word white has come to have a stigma attached to it.

`` `European' is more inclusive and sounds more friendly,'' he said. ``That's how we want to be viewed.''

Still, Americans are likely to keep struggling with the language of race, just as they always have, said Frye Jacobson, the Yale professor.

``It's a period of intense consciousness and scrutiny,'' he said. ``Race is so much on people's minds, and probably nowhere more than in California.''