Posted on 01/09/2009 5:05:31 PM PST by real_patriotic_american
Riverside and San Bernardino counties added more Latino residents between 2000 and 2007 than all but three other U.S. counties, a new analysis of U.S. Census data found.
The report, by the nonpartisan Washington, D.C.-based Pew Hispanic Center, also found that most Latino population growth is now from new births. In the 1980s and 1990s, it was mostly from immigration.
That means no matter what happens to the immigration rate, the Latino population of Riverside and San Bernardino counties will continue to grow steadily, reaching a majority within several years, experts say.
Riverside County's Hispanic population surged 60 percent between 2000 and 2007, and San Bernardino County's rose 40 percent. Los Angeles County had only a 10 percent increase -- although because it has a much larger population, it added more Hispanic residents than any county in the nation.
More than 600,000 Latinos became Riverside and San Bernardino county residents in the first seven years of the decade, pushing the population to more than 1.8 million. The Inland area is now about 45 percent Latino.
The Inland region's non-Hispanic population also rose significantly, but not as quickly as the Latino population. Latinos in the Inland area are, on average, younger than non-Hispanics, and Latina women have a higher fertility rate, especially among immigrants, said Hans Johnson, associate director of the nonpartisan San Francisco-based Public Policy Institute of California.
That portends a big increase in Hispanic births in the Inland area, said Johnson, co-author of "The Inland Empire in 2015," a demographic study that was released in April. A continued influx of immigrants from Latin America -- and especially of immigrants and U.S.-born Latinos from coastal Southern California counties will also contribute to the surge in the region's Latino population, Johnson predicted.
Latino migration in the Inland area is different from most places. Only about 20 percent of new Hispanic residents arrive directly from Latin America, Johnson said. The rest come from elsewhere in the United States, especially Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties, he said.
In most of the country, Latinos move to be near family and jobs. The biggest reason Hispanics -- both immigrants and U.S. residents -- move to the Inland area is lower home prices and rents than in coastal counties, he said. Living here allows many to keep their jobs in coastal counties and still be near family, Johnson said.
The credit crisis is probably slowing the Latino influx. But with housing still cheaper in the Inland area than coastal counties, Latinos will continue to move here, especially when the economy improves, he said.
"This bust we're experiencing right now will return to a boom in the next seven or eight years," Johnson said.
Nationwide, the Latino population grew 29 percent between 2000 and 2007. The non-Hispanic population rose only 4 percent.
Latinos accounted for more than half of the United States' population growth, even though they comprise only 15 percent of the total population.
A previous Pew study found that immigration is slowing. But many of the immigrants already here are having children, as are the U.S.-born descendents of immigrants.
"We're now seeing the secondary impact of international migration from the 1980s and 1990s," said Richard Fry, senior research associate at Pew and author of the new report.
The 1990s saw exponential Hispanic population increases in parts of the South and Midwest that previously had few Latino residents. The South continues to have the biggest share of Latino population growth, but the West's share of growth rose in the 2000s, Fry said.
Latinos moved in huge numbers to small towns in the South and Midwest because of jobs, and with fewer jobs, they are more likely to settle in areas with large, longstanding Hispanic populations, such as Southern California, said Susan Brown, an associate professor of sociology at UC Irvine who studies immigrant-population trends.
The economic slowdown is affecting the entire country but immigrants are more likely to have friends or family in established enclaves in Southern California who can help them find jobs or provide a place to stay while they look for work, said Todd Sorensen, an assistant professor of economics at UC Riverside and an expert on immigration.
That will lead many immigrants who otherwise may have tried their luck in a Southern boomtown to instead settle in places like Southern California, he said.
"People are less likely to take chances in bad times," he said.
Reach David Olson at 951-368-9462 or dolson@PE.com
You either fight them or change their ways, or have enough kids to out vote them. Which is it?
this is change that has always been, will always be....people flee to better places to live...just like a lot of our great grandparents or even earlier....the only ones who didn’t choose to be here are the black African slaves and their descendants..the rest of us come here by way of immigration...even the Indians came from somewhere else...
They worked or starved. Period.
Yes, President Bush said that we are a land of immigrants. But the passengers on the Mayflower didn’t come here trafficking illegal drugs, to commit terrorist acts, take advantage of our generous welfare system without paying taxes and so on..... Illegal immigration is destroying our economy. Note the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac housing collapse in the Southwest U.S. where owners, who shouldn’t have taken out a mortgage in the first place, are going into forclosure right and left.
You appear to be a Democrat?
Right on! I agree with you 110%.
we may have a chance to change their ways by the next election but it will take a major screwup by dems to do it - like iou’s for welfare checks - what isn’t mentioned in the article is, San Bernadino County, once a staunch Republican county, has now turned Democrat because of the relocation of hispanics/blacks from LA to the high desert as a result of the former housing boom in LA pricing out the minorities. (voting demographics for northern caalifornia also changing for same reason).
I had a transplant tell me the other day, ‘esta es Mexico’. I suggested he review the Treaty of Guadalupe and reminded him that California all the way to Texas had been bought and paid for twice, in money and blood, and we’d be happy to go at it a third time. The ‘tude disappeared almost as quickly as the commentor.
And this means we can look for more elections just like the farce that just happened. We are importing socialism and anarchy.
” We have to convert them, or go to war with them. A few facts about the newcomers: they don’t like taxes; they are sick of corruption (that’s what they grew up on); and they can’t stand cross-dressers. They are OUR people, no matter what the libtards say.”
As proved by this last election, you are wrong. They are simply encouraging the corruption they left and know how to live under. Why would they convert to conservatism, they LOVE socialism! And they love handouts even more, or they’d stay at HOME and deal with their own mess - like WE have to.
You’ll have no argument from me as to how they behave here—as a rule—because our system has poor fraud accounting controls and because they have taken advantage of it. The point here, though, is very simple: in addition to the fence, in addition to border controls, we need to CHANGE them, we need to make them into Americans. We need to win them over to the truth. The raw cultural ore is there. We just have to refine it. And if you haven’t had at least a half dozen children, and aren’t encouraging your kids to have kids, then I don’t want to hear anything from you.
“And if you haven’t had at least a half dozen children, and aren’t encouraging your kids to have kids, then I don’t want to hear anything from you.”
I would have loved to had more kids. I was too busy supporting everyone elses.
Regarding kids: I’m sick of conservatives who average the 1.5 offspring and then complain about the voting demographic. That’s all.
Sorry to say, a lot of us were taken in by the Zero Population Growth bull, and it’s too late for us to have more kids. We are, however, encouraging the kids we did have to have large families. I just hope those grandkids don’t end up being the slaves of the government.
Our country’s economical problems all stem from Southern California and illegal immigration. It’s time for elected officials and the authorities to enforce laws against illegal immigration.
Yes, we need to teach the youth the benefits of Conservatism and the virtues of large families.
Not entirely true - there were a million or so Irishmen who were involuntarily deported to the New World during the Potato Famine because the English saw that as cheaper than trying to feed them.
I agree! The GOP was hard right in 2004 and swept the Presidency, House and Senate.
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