Posted on 08/14/2005 5:01:00 AM PDT by Happy2BMe
Star-Telegram
The top-rated radio station in North Texas this spring didn't feature a country or rap or talking-head format. It was KESS/107.9 FM La Que Buena, a regional Mexican music station.
The top-rated local TV news broadcasts in the Dallas market for adults 18 to 34 aren't anchored by people named Jane or Tracy. Spanish-language Univision's Noticias 23, which airs on KUVN/Channel 23, ranked No. 1 at 5 and 10 p.m. in the May 2005 sweeps, topping the competition from every English-language station.
Neither fact comes as a surprise to people who track demographic changes in Texas, which is now a minority-majority state for the first time since ... oh, the days of the Republic of Texas.
In a census report released Thursday, Texas' minority population was estimated at 11.3 million, or 50.2 percent of the state's total population of 22.5 million. Although Anglos are still the state's largest individual population group, they no longer constitute the majority.
Viewed through the myopic lens that xenophobes and bigots use, this information is bad news for Anglos. Sadly, some people think the game of life must have losers in order for others to win, and therefore they are threatened by the numbers.
Facts are facts: Texas is changing - rapidly. By 2030, Texas will have a younger and more diverse population than most of the United States, according to projections made by state demographer Steve Murdock. Elderly Texans will tend to be Anglos. Young-er Texans - those in their most productive work years - will be overwhelmingly non-Anglo.
A clear example of this can be found in the enrollment statistics for the Fort Worth school district. Half of the more than 80,000 children who will start public school Monday in Cowtown speak something other than English as their primary language.
As goes the Lone Star State, so will the rest of the nation go: The Texas of today will be the United States of tomorrow. The Census Bureau has projected that by 2040, the U.S. population will be 53 percent Anglo and 47 percent non-Anglo. Those numbers mirror what Texas was - in 2003.
The message from Murdock, who heads the Texas State Data Center at Texas A&M University, hasn't changed during the years he's been studying and talking about the numbers: The future of all Texans is tied to the changes occurring and how the state's leadership handles them.
None of this has to be negative news if Texas - and the rest of the nation - is prepared to address the challenges inherent in a dynamic shift in demographics.
First and foremost, that means ensuring that all Texans have the skills and education necessary to be competitive in what is increasingly an international economy.
Contrary to what isolationists believe, the answer is not walling up the border between Texas and Mexico. The growth within the Latino population is not purely a function of immigration, legal or illegal. Even if the southern border were lined with guards and strung with barbed wire, it would have a negligible impact on the percentage of increase within the Hispanic population. The growth is a result of the birth rate within the Latino population already here.
Nor is this particular growth factor engraved in stone. As education and prosperity increase in any segment of the population, birth rates decline. The same goes for the second and third generations in families.
The challenge is to make sure that African-Americans and Hispanics receive the education and training that will enable them to prosper.
In 2000, African-American and Hispanic households in Texas recorded an average income that was less than two-thirds that of Anglos. Female-headed households had an average income of less than $25,000. Demand for publicly funded social and health care services was on the rise.
The fastest-growing segment of the population - Hispanics - lags behind in high school graduation rates, which affects employment possibilities and earning power.
If the state's elected, business, academic and community leaders don't pay attention, and if current trends persist, then the statistics would very well become alarming.
The fastest-growing segment of the population - Hispanics - lags behind in high school graduation rates, which affects employment possibilities and earning power.
The last thing over heard from behind the wall at the Alamo: "Where did all those roofers come from!!??"
I had business down in the valley last year and I swear I could not find an english radio station to listen.
Lets see how the ratings go when a number of similar stations start broadcasting.
It's easy to be number one when you are the only station pulling the news crowd in Spanish. The English speaking are split between ABC/NBC/SeeBS and all the cable News groups.
A little competition is good.
Americans of European descent need to be weaned off birth control and abortion, then maybe our birth rates might catch up with the Hispanics. See Northern Ireland and Israel for the effects of demographics re. high Catholic and Arab birth rates vs low rates for Protestants and Jews.
It reads like the dust jacket to Jurassic Park and then it leaps to the following line, which has tohave come from a computer-generated liberal software spin's writer's laptop.
"First and foremost, that means ensuring that all Texans have the skills and education necessary to be competitive in what is increasingly an international economy..
"World Ends!"
"Women and Minorities Affected Most!"
Bye bye Miss American pie...
And I have no doubt that most of those abortions were to WASPs.
Look at the bright side, white people will now be eligible for minority benefits
As I recall, the top rated station in Los Angeles is Spanish language. Not because the population is predominately Latino (although it is), but because the English speakers are divided up over a large number of stations, while there are fewer Spanish language ones.
LOL, you speak the straight truth on that. I guess it is a good thing for those of us in the middle of tornado alley that suffer roof damage from wind and hail because I don't think a roof would get done in this area without the Mexican crews. I can't recall the last Anglo I observed on a roof in my neighborhood.
So, pray tell, who is being challenged to make sure "African-Americans and Hispanics receive the education and training that will enable them to prosper?"
Could it be the evil Anglos? A person can't look around the world without seeing people on every continent asking the white man for a handout on one hand and threatening his life with the other.
At what point in history did the white man become the provider and supporter of everyone else on this planet?
How can we afford more children? We are not illegals. We have to pay the doctors and support our children. The illegals are stealing our future. Our politicians (both parties)are helping them. Sad isn't it?.
i think any comparison between americans and israelis and arabs and mexicans is absurd.
There are massive problems but there is and wont be an intifada here.
If? They haven't been paying attention for decades and it's alarming TODAY.
Wait a minute! Very diverse does not mean that non-Anglo/non-"white" (many Latino Americans are white and many ARE Mestizo or Mulatto ie partially white) group makes a big majority. Very diverse means that there are several groups, very diferent one from another and that none is a majority. Unless we are dealing with Newspeak.
It looks that by 2030, Textas will be LESS diverse than now. It will be as diverse as Chihuahua or Sonora.
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