Posts Tagged: ethnic groups
Hispanics overtake whites to become California’s largest ethnic group
About 15 million Hispanics lived in California on July 1, 2014, compared to roughly 14.9 million non-Hispanic whites, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates released late last week. The California Department of Finance predicted in 2013 that Hispanics would outnumber whites in 2014; the census figures confirm that prediction.
The new data represents a historic shift over a short period of time. California has six times as many Hispanics today as it did in 1970. The number of non-Hispanic whites in the state has declined since 1970.
California Hispanics today enjoy more influence than ever before. They run tens of thousands of California businesses; they support scores of Spanish-language newspapers, radio and TV stations; they make up a sizable proportion of nearly every county in the state, and they hold political positions ranging from mayor of Long Beach to president pro tem of the state Senate.
“It's a milestone for California,” said Mark Hugo Lopez, director of Hispanic research at the Pew Research Center. “In many respects, California's large population growth has been driven by Hispanic population growth.”
Two factors largely explain the growth in California's Latino population: immigration and high birth rates.
From the 1970s through the 1990s, millions of Mexicans, Guatemalans and other Latinos crossed the border into California, some legally, some not. That immigration has lately slowed, particularly during the last recession, several demographers said.
For the past decade or so, most of the population increase among California Hispanics has come from a high number of births and a low number of deaths, several experts said. Latinos tend to be significantly younger than their neighbors; they are of an age where they are likely to have children.
“What's mostly going is the difference in birth rates in Latinos and non-Hispanic whites,” said Laura Hill, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California.
Conversely, the birth rate among whites is relatively low as the population ages and young, non-Hispanic whites put off having children, Hill and others said.
“Along with this, we see people who have left,” said Robert Suro, a professor at the University of Southern California and director of the Tomás Rivera Policy Institute, a research center that studies demographic diversity. “Somebody who doesn't want to live in an intensely multicultural area has left coastal California by now. Most of them were non-Hispanic whites. Most of them were older adults.”
Latinos in California are largely concentrated in rural farming counties or urban Southern California. About 21 percent of the Sacramento region's residents identify as Latino.
The large majority of Latinos in California are here legally and are working, federal statistics show. Legal immigrants make up more than 80 percent of the state's Latino population, according to the latest figures from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. More than 90 percent of Latinos in the California labor force hold a job, according to the state Employment Development Department.
“It's a mistake to think California Latinos are just a bunch of undocumented people,” said Jim Gonzalez, chairman of Sacramento's Cien Amigos, a civic action group dedicated to improving California-Mexico relations. “The Latino community is a young, dynamic community. They're excellent consumers, constantly providing for their families, so in pure economic terms alone, this is positive news.”
Even so, many Latinos continue to face barriers. Total Latino household income in California was roughly one-third of household income for non-Hispanic whites in 2013, census figures show. Activists continue to work at increasing voter turnout and social mobility among Hispanics.
When it comes to politics in California, “Latinos punch under their weight,” Suro said.
That could change. Due to population growth alone, California Latinos will make up an estimated 33 percent of voters in the 2040 presidential election, compared with about 24 percent in 2012, said Mindy Romero, director of the California Civic Engagement Project at the UC Davis Center for Regional Change.
“If they increase their turnout rates more, coupled with the increase in population, you are going to see even larger increases in their political influence,” Romero said.
Latinos and other ethnic groups have also made California increasingly attractive to those seeking to live in a diverse community, Suro said. Their growing presence helps the state's economy, he added.
“The population change has a magnet to a certain type of person,” he said. It attracts “people looking for a quickly changing ... new-economy ... multicultural-type place.”
Source: Originally published on the Sacramento Bee as Census: Hispanics overtake whites to become California's largest ethnic group, by Phillip Reese and Stephen Magagnini, June 30, 2015.
New report reveals surprising facts about Hispanic children and teens
Child Trends, the non-partisan, non-profit research organization, analyzed a wealth of recent Census data regarding the country's 17.5 million Hispanic children and teens, and the group identified some surprising facts.
The vast majority of Hispanic children in 2013 – more than 90 percent — were born in the U.S. Most of those children had family connections to Mexico, and the rest were connected to Puerto Rico, followed by El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Cuba and other countries in Central America, and South America.
A majority of Hispanic children — 58 percent — live with two married parents. Latino children are more likely than their white or black counterparts to eat a meal with their families six or seven days in a week. And those meals are more likely to be home-cooked in Hispanic households, compared to meals eaten in black and white households, according to the report.
Sixty-two percent of Hispanic children are considered low income, living in families that earn just enough money to cover basic needs, the report said. Roughly one out of every three Hispanic children meets the federal definition of poor, compared with 38 percent of black children and 11 percent of white children, researchers at Child Trends found.
Hispanic parents are less likely to read to their babies and toddler than parents of white children, and Hispanic children are not adequately prepared when they start school, the report found. But there has been a recent jump in enrollment in early childhood education programs among Hispanic children, from 39 percent in 2007 to 52 percent in 2012.
And, as a group, Hispanic students are making gains, though they lag behind their white peers. Twenty-one percent of Hispanic eighth graders were proficient in federally administered math tests in 2013, a leap from eight percent in 2000. The on-time high school graduation rate for Hispanics also has surged, and college enrollment is at an all-time high. But Hispanics lagged behind whites and blacks in college completion in 2013.
One area where Hispanics outpaced other racial or ethnic groups is in smartphone use. In 2012, 43 percent of Hispanic teens between 12 and 17 owned a smartphone, compared to 35 percent of whites and 40 percent of blacks in the same age group. More white teenagers owned cell phones, followed by black teens and then Hispanics.
Source: Published originally on The Washington Post as New report reveals surprising facts about Hispanic children and teens by Lyndsey Laytom, September 24, 2014.
Hispanics gain at California colleges
Latinos account for 28.8% of the 61,120 Californians admitted for this fall's freshman class at the UC system's nine undergraduate campuses, up from 27.6% last year and topping the 26.8% share of whites, preliminary data show.
Both trail the 36.2% share for Asians, the largest freshman group for the past few years. Blacks represented 4.2% of those admitted, the same as in 2013.
Hispanics represent California's largest ethnic group. According to the California Department of Finance, among 15- to 19-year-olds in California, 49.4% are Hispanic, 29.2% are white, 10.9% are Asian and 6% are black.
"The freshmen admitted reflect the changing demographics and diversity of the state," said Dianne Klein, spokeswoman for the UC system.
Los Angeles resident Wessly Hernandez, 17, who plans to study civil engineering, was admitted to UC San Diego, Davis and Irvine, as well as the University of Southern California and Carnegie Mellon University. "My parents didn't make it to high school so I feel a lot of satisfaction, because this accomplishment is for them as well as for me," said the son of a cleaning lady and mechanic, both Latino.
California law prohibits public universities from considering race or ethnicity in admissions decisions. But Ms. Klein said the UC system has been striving to attract students from underperforming high schools, which typically have a concentration of under-represented minority and low-income students.
About 43% of those admitted for the fall identified themselves as the first to attend college in their families. "Too often in minority communities there was this perception of the vaunted University of California system as too expensive and out of reach," she said.
"It's great that Latinos are being more represented in the UC system, since, after all, they are largest group in California," said Dowell Myers, a California demographer at USC, a private institution. "It would be really useful to have more representation of African- Americans."
Meantime, the UC system, like many others, attracted more nonresidents to help bolster its budget. The share of students the UC system admitted from other states climbed 9% from last year, while the number from other countries rose 15%, according to university figures.
The system, which includes the prestigious Berkeley and University of California, Los Angeles campuses, estimates 13% of undergraduates this coming academic year will be non-Californians, up from 12% this year and about 5% four years ago. Tuition for nonresidents is about $35,000 compared with $13,000 for residents. "The revenue they bring is substantial and subsidizes the education of Californians," Ms. Klein said.
Some other big state universities have even greater out-of-state populations, including the University of Michigan, University of Alabama and University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Source: Published originally on The Wall Street Journal as Hispanics Gain at California Colleges by Miriam Jordan, April 20, 2014.
Ethnic Umbrellas
Let’s begin by comparing Hispanic with four other common ethnic umbrella terms: European-American, Asian-American, African-American and Native-American. Certainly they all share the characteristics of having a geographical reference point. But beyond that, distinctions appear.
European-American is probably the least complicated term. It refers to Americans whose ancestry derives primarily from Europe. Yet European-Americans spring from nations with vastly different languages and cultures.
Similarly, Asian-American refers to Americans whose ancestry derives from Asia. They, too, spring from myriad languages and cultures. Yet there is disagreement over where to draw the line between Asian Americans and Middle Eastern Americans or whether they should all be placed within one convenient cohort.
Like the previous umbrella terms, African-American refers to Americans whose ancestry derives from a continent, in this case Africa. In U.S. popular parlance, however, African-American does not refer to all people of continental African ancestry, but rather only to those categorized racially in the United States as Black Americans.
Native-American refers to Americans whose ancestry derives from the hundreds of Indian cultures, with a myriad of languages, currently situated within the current boundaries of the United States. However, as commonly used, Native-American does not generally include those of Latin American indigenous origins.
So what about Hispanics? Unlike European-Americans and Asian-Americans, Hispanics generally share a common ancestral language — Spanish. Unlike African Americans, Hispanics do not all come from one racial origin (race as used popularly in the United States, not as a scientific term). Like Native Americans, many Hispanics have familial roots in this land before it became part of the current United States. However, unlike most Native Americans, tens of millions of Hispanics have immigrant roots.
In short, Hispanic is a unique umbrella concept. It is unique because it embraces both those with immigrant roots and those whose ancestors were here before the United States came to them. It is also unique because, unlike the other umbrella terms, it refers to a multiracial people with a common ancestral language and, in some respects, widely-shared cultural characteristics. It is that uniqueness that I will further explore in my next blog.
Source: Published originally on Univision Hispanic Insights Blog as “Ethnic Umbrellas” by Dr. Carlos Cortés, Professor Emeritus of History at the University of California, Riverside, February 23, 2013.
Hispanic or Latino?
This brings me back to the Hispanic or Latino label. Some of us prefer only one or the other. Alternately, for some of us (myself included), either word is fine. Others prefer a national origin label (but also don’t mind Hispanic or Latino, either), and yet others like just being called American.
My father, who grew up in Guadalajara, was a proud Mexican and a proud American. He used both of those labels to describe himself. But he never referred to himself as either a Hispanic or a Latino, that is, until around the end of the 1960’s, when he became more deeply involved in politics and began working closely with people of other Latin American extractions.
Soon after the federal government decided upon the term Hispanic. Since then, with this official backing, Hispanic seems to have gained the upper hand in public discourse. For example, newly-formed umbrella organizations are generally adopting the word Hispanic in their name, although many still use Latino and some even use other terms, including the combo Hispanic-Latino. Question No. 8 of the 2010 Census presented both options, asking, “Is Person 1 of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin?”
But if the Hispanic term has gained the current upper hand, Latino lives on. And so do Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Dominican, Guatemalan, Colombian, and the rest. We’ve become increasingly comfortable using both an umbrella term and a specific origin term as complementary parts of our identity.
If we want to split hairs – and we academics are professionals at doing so – we could point out a nuanced difference.
Technically, Latino should include Brazilians (but not Spaniards), while Hispanic should include Spaniards (but not Portuguese-speaking Brazilians). However, for the most part, Hispanic and Latino seem to be used interchangeably for our community. Yet, particularly due to the growing number of intermarriage offspring, determining precisely who belongs to our community is becoming much trickier.
So don’t bother asking anybody which is the right word for my people. You’ll probably just get a personal preference, no matter how passionately or authoritatively it is expressed.
For most of us, whether you use Latino or Hispanic isn’t that big a deal. Just recognize that we are and that I am.
Source: Published originally on Univision Hispanic Insights Blog as “Hispanic or Latino” by Dr. Carlos Cortés, Professor Emeritus of History at the University of California, Riverside, February 19, 2013.