U.S. Latino Issues concerns a group of people who the U.S. Census calls Latinos or Hispanics. Although Latinos can be of different nationalities, as with Asian Americans, the census lumps them together for the census count. When and why the Latino identity came about is a more involved story. Essentially, politicians, the media, and marketers find it convenient to deal with the different U.S. Spanish-speaking people under one umbrella.
Many people with Spanish surnames contest the term Latino. They say it is misleading because no Latino or Hispanic nationality exists since no Latino state exists, so generalizing the term Latino slights the various national identities included under the umbrella. Some critics argue that the Latino identity was artificially constructed by the U.S. government. According to the critics, the purpose was to erase the collective historical memory of the various Spanish-speaking groups. Critics accuse the supporters of the term Latino of being cheerleaders for the system that celebrates a false impression that Latinos are making it in society, resulting in flag-waving ceremonies celebrating, “We are number one.” Finally, the Latino identity erases the reality that most people under this umbrella are of mixed-race background.
The supporters of the term argue times have changed and national identities as we once knew them are outdated. They believe clinging onto national identities promotes nationalism, factionalism, and thus division. They argue that the term Latino is more inclusive. This school of belief is divided into two factions, one preferring the term Hispanic and the other preferring Latino. The popularity of the terms is greater within professional and business groups who live closest to Anglo Americans and who want to forge a national presence. In turn, government agencies, which for statistical reasons find it more convenient to lump the disparate groups into one, support the trend.
With this controversy in mind, U.S. Latino Issues turns to introducing the different nationalities within the contested Latino identity, taking into account their individual realities without debating the political correctness of the term, the definition ot which depends on the person’s view of the world.
WHO ARE THEY AND HOW MANY SO-CALLED U.S. LATINOS
ARE THERE?
The 2000 census listed 35.3 million Latinos in the United States. Latinos make up 12.5 percent of the nation’s population[R1] , and by the year 2005 Latinos were the largest minority in the United States, outnumbering African Americans, that totaled 45,562 in 2014. The population of U.S. Latinos grew 60 percent between the 1990 census and 2000 when the Census Bureau counted 22.4 million of them. Mexican Americans composed the largest group, making up 58.5 percent of total Latinos, probably more if the census acknowledged that 17.3 percent of the respondents marked Latino or Hispanic without designating a nationality. This growth continued over the next decade and by 2015 Latinos had become a national minority with considerable growth in the South. Because of the economic depression, however, the Mexican population declined from 2009 to 2014 when there was a net Loss of 140,000 from 2009 to 2014. The reason given for this shift was Family Reunification.
The Lewis Mumford Center for Comparative Urban and Regional Research at University at Albany, State University of New York, has questioned these figures and believes that there has been a serious undercount of new Latino immigrants that is new immigrants from the Dominican Republic, Central America, and South America. The growth of the new Latino population is creating tension as the numbers of old Latino groups, such as Cuban Americans, who register 1.3 million, are challenged for leadership by the newcomers. The Mumford Center estimates that 1.1 million Dominicans (63 percent foreign-born) and 1.1 million Salvadorans (more than 70 percent foreign-born) lived in the United States in 2000, and that the new Latinos are growing more rapidly than Puerto Ricans, who are by definition U.S.- born, or Cubans, who are 68 percent foreign-born.2
U.S. Latinos, especially those of Mexican ancestry, are young compared to the rest of the U.S. population. The median age of Latinos nationally in 2000 was 25.9, almost 10 years below the national median of 35.3. However, the median age of Mexicans nation-wide is even lower at 24.2 years. (Some 36 percent of Mexican Americans were born in Mexico, about half of them immigrating to the United States since 1992.) Almost three-fourths of U.S.
Table 1
2000 U.S. Census Bureau Latino Results
Subject | Number | Percent |
| |
| Hispanic or Latino origin |
| ||
| Total population | 281,421,906 | 100.0 | |
| Hispanic or Latino (of any race) | 35,305,818 | 12.5 | |
| Not Hispanic or Latino | 246,116,088 | 87.5 | |
| Hispanic or Latino by type |
| ||
| Hispanic or Latino (of any race) | 35,305,818 | 100.0 | |
| Mexican | 20,640,711 | 58.5 | |
| Puerto Rican | 3,406,178 | 9.6 | |
| Cuban | 1,241,685 | 3.5 | |
Other Hispanic or Latino | 28.4 |
| ||
| Dominican (Dominican Republic) | 764,945 | 2.2 | |
| Central American (excludes Mexican) | 1,686,937 | 4.8 |
|
| Costa Rican | 68,588 | 0.2 | |
| Guatemalan | 372,487 | 1.1 | |
| Honduran | 217,569 | 0.6 | |
| Nicaraguan | 177.684 | 0.5 | |
| Panamanian | 91,723 | 0.3 | |
| Salvadoran | 655,165 | 1.9 | |
| Other Central American | 103,721 | 0.3 | |
South American | 1,353,562 | 3.8 |
| |
| Argentinean | 100,864 | 0.3 | |
| Bolivian | 42,068 | 0.1 | |
| Chilean | 68,849 | 0.2 | |
| Colombian | 470,684 | 1.3 | |
| Ecuadorian | 260,559 | 0.7 | |
| Paraguayan | 8,769 | 0.0 | |
| Peruvian | 233,926 | 0.7 | |
| Uruguayan | 18,804 | 0.1 | |
| Venezuelan | 91,507 | 0.3 | |
| Other South American | 57,532 | 0.2 |
Table 1 Continued
Subject Number Percent
Spaniard 100,135 0.3
All other Hispanic or Latino 6,111,665 17.3
Checked only other Hispanic 1,733,274 4.9
Write-in Spanish 686,004 1.9
Write-in Hispanic 2,454,529 7.0
Write-in Latino 450,769 1.3
Not Elsewhere classified 787,089 2.2
Source: Bureau of the Census, Census 2000 Summary File 1, in The Hispanic Population: Census 2000 Brief.
Mexicans are younger than age 35—the youngest of the U.S. Latinos. The second largest Latino group was the Puerto Ricans, who numbered 3.4 million, or 9.6 percent of the Latino total. Puerto Ricans had a median age of 27.3 years. Central Americans number 1.68 million, or 4.8 percent of the total, and had a median age of 29.2. (Caution: the Mumford Center has revised these figures upward.) Dominicans total 765,000, or 2.2 percent of Latinos, with a median age of 29.5. (Note that the Mumford Center estimates the total U.S. Dominican population at 1.1 million.) About 1.2 million Cubans, whose median age is 40.7, live in the United States.
Because U.S. Latinos are young, they have a higher birthrate than white Americans. These figures are even more dramatic considering that by the year 2030, Latinos will compose half of all Texans,3 and that in 1998,47.5 percent of infants born in California were Latinos. Meanwhile, Euro-American mothers accounted for 33.9 percent of infants born, followed by Asians and Pacific Islanders with 10.7 percent, African Americans with 6.8 percent and Native Americans at 0.5 percent (see Table l).4
Apart from differences in nationality among U.S. Latinos, class and gender differences also exist. U.S. Latinos are represented in all classes. Recent studies show that Latino middle-class households earning more than $40,000 have increased by 80 percent in the past 20 years.5 Nearly 42 percent of native-born or U.S.-born Latino households were middle class in 1998 (up from 39 percent in 1979). The percentage of native-born Latinos with a college education rose from 10.7 percent in 1979 to 15.4 percent in 1998, a gain of 43.9 percent (see Table 3). Yet this gain was smaller with Mexican
Table 2
Mumford Estimates of U.S. Latino Population for 2000
Mexican | 23,060,224 |
Puerto Rican | 3,640,460 |
Cuban | 1,315,346 |
Dominican | 1,121,257 |
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