Hispanics Are Fastest-Growing Minority
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050609/D8AK5DB00.html
By PAULINE JELINEK
Jun 9, 2005
WASHINGTON (AP) - Hispanics accounted for half the 2.9 million U.S.
population growth from 2003 to 2004 and now constitute one-seventh of all
people in the United States.
A Census Bureau report issued Thursday said that trend probably will
continue because of immigration and a Hispanic birth rate outstripping
non-Hispanic blacks and whites.
The agency estimated there are 41.3 million Hispanics in the U.S. The bureau
does not ask about legal status so its numbers are intended to include
everyone.
The population growth for Asians ran a close second. Increases in both
groups are due largely to immigration, but also higher birth rates, said
Lewis W. Goodman, an American University expert on U.S.-Latin American
relations.
"If we didn't have those elements, we would be moving into a situation like
Japan and Europe ... where the populations are graying in a way that is very
alarming and endangering their productivity and endangering even their
social security systems," he said.
Most immigrants to the U.S. tend to arrive in their 20s, when many people
have children. A far greater percentage of whites than Hispanics is 65 or
older; the opposite is true of those under 18.
Immigration has become a volatile issue in Congress and border states, as
well as in Georgia and other places where there has been a surge in new
arrivals. Critics say lax enforcement of immigration laws has allowed
millions of people to enter the U.S. illegally, take jobs from legal
residents and drain social services.
The Hispanic growth rate for the 12 months starting July 2003 was 3.6
percent compared with the overall population growth of 1 percent.
The growth rate was 3.4 percent for Asians, 1.7 percent for native Hawaiians
and other Pacific Islanders, 1.3 percent for blacks, 1 percent for American
Indians and Alaska natives, and 0.8 percent for whites.
That meant that at the beginning of July last year, the population was an
estimated 294 million with the following racial and ethnic breakdown: 240
million whites, 39.2 million blacks, 14 million Asians, 4.4 million native
Indians and Alaskans, and 980,000 native Hawaiians and other islanders.
The numbers for all races and ethnic groups do not add up to the total
because 4.4 million people listed themselves as having more than one race.
The Census Bureau counts "Hispanic" or "Latino" as an ethnicity rather than
a race, so Hispanics can be of any race. The population of non-Hispanic
whites indicating no other race increased just 0.3 percent in the past year,
to 197.8 million.
"Looking toward the future, we see a different face of the U.S. population,"
said Audrey Singer, an immigration and census specialist at the Brookings
Institution. "But I don't think that's necessarily new. It's a confirmation
that this hasn't stopped or changed much."
The size of the Hispanic population and, to a lesser extent, the Asian
population, rose in nearly every state over the 1990s. Also, the Census
Bureau projected last year that whites and minority groups overall would be
roughly equal in size by 2050.
"Sometimes this is portrayed as a problem for the United States - that the
ethnic composition of the country is changing and that new people are coming
to take jobs," said Goodman, dean of American University's School of
International Service.
"My view is just the opposite: increased fertility of young people makes the
(social) structure one that is more sustaining of economic production and
enables older people to be in a culture where their retirements can be
financed."
The Census Bureau estimates population change using annual data on births,
deaths and international migration.
--
Jim
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Western_Nationalist/
Union Against Multi-Culty
"Abolish Multi-Culty and String Up The Traitors!"
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214771. Hispanics Are Fastest-Growing Minority
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