Monday, Oct. 23, 1989
American
As census takers prepare for the 1990 population count, which could sharply shift the relative clout of states in the House of Representatives and force the redistribution of countless federal aid programs, one trend is already evident: as a group, Hispanics have grown five times as fast as the rest of the U.S. population since 1980. Their number has leaped 39% and is now 20.1 million, 8.2% of the U.S. total. The figures, released last week, came from a Census Bureau survey conducted in March, which made no attempt to distinguish between legal and illegal residents.
The influx of Hispanics, mostly from Mexico, is concentrated in California (which has 34%), Texas (21%), New York (10%) and Florida (8%). Besides holding a potentially pivotal vote in close elections in those states, Hispanics are disproportionately young and thus constitute a large share of students in many school systems. At this rate, Hispanics could overtake blacks (30 million) as the largest U.S. minority by 2015.