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 Editorials | Issues | May 2008 
US Latino Population Trends Defy the Stereotypes
 Victor Landa - New York Times
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According to the most recent Pew Hispanic Center study, "annual births to Hispanic women in the United States exceeded 1 million for the first time in 2006, and 1 in 4 children in the U.S. under the age of 5 is Hispanic."
Also, "nearly two-thirds (62 percent) of their (Latino) population growth in 2006-2007 came from births rather than immigration - a reversal of the growth pattern in the 1990s."
Meanwhile, according to a CNN World report, "the average family size in Mexico has declined from seven children per family in 1965 to 2.5 today."
What do we make of this? That some myths and definitions about the Latino community in the U.S. are not holding up, and that assumptions about the future of immigration from Mexico should be reconsidered.
The most prevalent myth holds that the growth of the Latino community in the United States is driven by immigration. That's partially true. The new, complete truth is that U.S. Latino population growth is now mostly homegrown, red-blooded, apple pie American.
The Pew study is surprising in the portrait that it paints of Latino women and their families. These are some of the highlights, taken directly from the study's talking points:
• Latinas are younger and have more children than non-Latinas;
• A little more than half are immigrants;
• They are equally likely as non-Latinas to be married;
• Immigrant Latinas are more likely to be married than native-born Latinas;
• They are less educated than non-Latinas, but they participate in the labor force almost as much as non-Latinas, and they earn • 25 percent less in salary • 20 percent of them live in poverty.
South of the border, Mexican women are having fewer babies than their mothers and grandmothers did. In fact, the median family size in Mexico is only slightly higher than it is in the United States. The stereotypical image of a Mexican family household with children crawling out of the windows is passé.
So take that lower Mexican birth rate, project it a couple of generations into the future, and you'll see an entirely new picture than the one we so willingly see through our assumptions. A shrinking Mexican work force coupled with a growing Mexican economy means that there will be sufficient jobs in Mexico for future Mexican workers - which is what Mexicans want to begin with.
On this side of the border, Latinas, the majority of whom are of Mexican descent, are giving birth to more and more U.S.-citizen Latino children. The birth rate among U.S. Latino families is not large, but it is higher than the birthrate of non-Latino families.
The Pew study puts it this way: "The fertility rate of Hispanic women is one-third higher than that of non-Hispanic women."
Women, mothers specifically, offer a clear prism through which to see the future; what mothers do today has a definite effect on what will occur tomorrow. Today, mothers are giving birth to fewer potential Latino immigrants and more U.S. citizens of Latino descent. That bodes well for tomorrow.
Any businessperson worth his or her weight will tell you that the best organizations are built with the end in mind. We know what the end will be in a couple of generations, so what are we talking about now? Building walls?
I suggest we start talking about the urgent need to properly educate our future work force. I suggest we look at who we'll be as Americans in 20 years and act accordingly.
We know where our future work force will come from, what it will look like, how it will impact our economy and our culture; we know that a large part of our population is aging and that the youngest slice of our demographic pie is in large part Latino. We can see where today's mothers are impacting tomorrow's world.
What are we doing about it?
Landa is a columnist for the San Antonio Express-News. Email him at landa(at)sbcglobal.net.
Factbox: Statistical Portrait of Hispanics in U.S.
Daniel Trotta - Reuters
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Hispanics, or Latinos, could play a significant role in the November U.S. presidential election.
Here's a look at their numbers, according to the Pew Hispanic Center's "Statistical Portrait of Hispanics in the United States, 2006."
Population: 44.3 million, 14.8 percent of total
Eligible voters: 17.9 million
Share of eligible voters: 8.7 percent.
Native born: 26.6 million
Foreign born: 17.7 million
Top countries of origin: Mexico 28.4 million, Puerto Rico 4.0 million, Cuba 1.5 million, El Salvador 1.4 million, Dominican Republic 1.2 million.
Top 10 Hispanic states by population (and percent of state population):
California 13.1 million (35.9 percent)
Texas 8.4 million (35.6 percent)
Florida 3.6 million (20.1 percent)
New York 3.1 million (16.3 percent)
Illinois 1.9 million (14.7 percent)
Arizona 1.8 million (29.1 percent)
New Jersey 1.4 million (15.6 percent)
Colorado 927,000 (19.5 percent)
New Mexico 874,000 (44.7 percent)
Georgia 696,000 (7.4 percent)
Same states by number of Hispanic eligible voters (and percentage of eligible voters):
California 5.0 million (22.8 percent)
Texas 3.6 million (24.6 percent)
Florida 1.7 million (13.6 percent)
New York 1.5 million (11.4 percent)
Illinois 704,000 (8.1 percent)
Arizona 678,000 (17.0 percent)
New Jersey 579,000 (9.9 percent)
Colorado 405,000 (12.3 percent)
New Mexico 492,000 (37.1 percent)
Georgia 147,000 (2.3 percent)
Hispanic median household income: $38,235
White median household income: $51,920
Black median household income: $32,198
Asian median household income: $63,390
Percentage of population in poverty: Hispanic 28.9 percent, white 11.3 percent, black 36.1 percent, Asian 12.0 percent, other 23.5 percent.
(Reporting by Daniel Trotta, editing by Doina Chiacu) |
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