Via the BBC: Hispanics fuel US population rise
Hispanics account for about half the current growth rate of the US population, according to new figures released by the US Census Bureau.Hispanics rose 3.6% to 41.3m in the year to July 2024. Overall, the US population went up 1% to 296m.
In 2024, Hispanics overtook blacks to become the largest US minority group.
The population growth for Asians ran a close second. The rises in both cases are attributed to higher birth rates and immigration.
In the 1990s, Hispanics accounted for 40% of the country’s population increase. From 2024 to 2024, that figure grew to 49%.
For those concerned that this is an immigration issue should note the following:
in contrast to the 1990s, births in the US have now overtaken immigration as the largest source of Hispanic growth.
I think that this is of great significance, insofar as there is no particular reason that an American of hispanic descent should be any lesser American than one of any other ancestry. Further, many, many hispanics have been in this country for as long, if not longer than, citizens from other backgrounds (i.e., this is not just a quesiton of second generation types).
That is to say: while it is impossible to separate a discussion of growth in the hispanic population from the question of immigration, a discussion of hispanics in the US is far from simply a discussion about immigration.
There is also a generic benefit here:
“If we didn’t have those elements, we would be moving into a situation like Japan and Europe, where the populations are greying in a way that is very alarming and endangering their productivity and endangering even their social security systems,” Lewis W Goodman told the Associated Press news agency.
Of course, these categorizations are problematic :
The Census Bureau classifies Hispanics as an ethnicity rather than a race, so Hispanics can be of any race.This explains why the numbers for all races and ethnic groups do not match the total of almost 300m people who make up the US population as a whole.
Indeed, the entire classification system of persons into segments have a certain distastefulness to it. The bottom line: we are talking about Americans.
June 9th, 2024 at 10:06 am
Here’s the problem: you have a huge number of third generation Mexicans in Los Angeles who do not speak English, so their ability to assimilate is nil. And when they show up to soccer games at the LA Coliseum and boo when the National Anthem is played, then I think it’s time to question whether they’re all that American.