Posted on 10/25/2008 6:27:09 AM PDT by BGHater
In a historic change with political and cultural implications for the nation's largest minority group, a baby boom has helped Hispanics account for just over half of the overall population growth in the United States since 2000, according to a report released Thursday.
Different from the past, the nation's Latino population growth in this decade has been more a product of birthrate than immigration, according to the report from the Pew Hispanic Center.
Since 2000, the nation's Latino population has increased by 10.2 million - 6 million from births in the United States and 4.2 million from immigration.
"What we are now seeing is the secondary impacts of Hispanic international migration from the '80s and '90s," said Richard Fry, a senior research associate at the center, a nonpartisan research group based in Washington, D.C. "Now fertility - natural increase - is driving Hispanic growth."
Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley are a microcosm of the phenomenon, with heavy immigration waves in the 1980s and 1990s leading to more American-born Latino children, Fry said.
Overall, the nation's Latino population has grown by nearly 30 percent, from about 35 million in 2000 to about 45 million in 2007, according to the Pew report. By comparison, the non-Hispanic U.S. population grew just 4 percent over the same period.
Los Angeles County, where the Latino population has increased by about 435,000 so far this decade, ranked first in the nation in Hispanic population, according to the report.
The Latino population growth so far this century is just a small part of the coming population explosion, demographers say.
California Budget Project researchers estimate that the state's Hispanic population will increase by 65 percent in the next 12 years while its non-Hispanic white population will grow by only 2.3 percent.
In California especially, the Latino population growth could change political power in electing more Hispanics and driving changes in public policy.
Already, U.S.-born children of Latino immigrants in the 1980s and 1990s are influencing change.
"There is a very large, young Hispanic second generation, and these are kids who were born to immigrants in the 1980s and '90s," Fry said. "In terms of California politics, now that these kids are all 18 and they can vote, I think about how they are going to influence the outcome in California."
Jaime Regalado, director of the Edmund G. "Pat" Brown Institute at California State University, Los Angeles, agrees.
"What that means is that there is going to be an increasing demand on ramping up for a fair share and a far more level playing field virtually across the board," he said. "We've heard that in politics. We've heard that in higher education (and) in K-12, making the schools more balanced, parallel and equal.
"But we're going to be increasingly hearing that as well in business and economic pursuits, whether it's small business, whether it's hiring by corporations or in foundations, whether it's in the leadership of the labor movement."
Latino population growth in the 21st century has been rather concentrated - in areas like the San Fernando Valley, for instance - with Hispanic growth in just 178 counties accounting for 79 percent of the nation's entire Latino population increase.
The Pew study also found that Latinos continue to disperse throughout the United States, but 80 percent of the growth in the Latino community is still occurring in the South and the West.
The Republican party will have to appeal to these new wave of hispanic voters, but illegal immigration has to be controlled at the same time for that appeal to be honest.
I think hispanics will turn out to be like the Irish and italians of yesterday (back when they weren’t considered part of “white” people) and become part of the conservative catholic voting block. That is if illegal immigration can be controlled and these immigrants are allowed to integrate.
You can hardly blame me. Careful...she bites - YEEHAW!
(Nope, that's a lick-n-stick tatoo) :D
Our kids look Latino (incredibly beautiful at that) but are All American.
If they come here LEGALLY and play by the rules, I can see your point. But the first thing we need to do is control immigration.
All of my cousins and I that left Communist Cuba with only our suitcases and our parents in 1960 are Republican.
Then again, we are now all rich old white guys.
The Republican Party attracts those people that believe that they can control their World but, unfortunately, many non-Cuban Latinos are of the mindset that the World controls them and that they need the Democrat Party in order to succeed.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.