Latino America

THE growth of the United States’ Hispanic population in the past three decades is likely to stand as one of the most dramatic demographic shifts in this country’s history. The Bureau of the Census did not even have an official designation for a person of “Hispanic” origin as recently as 1960.

Things have changed, and they changed quickly. The resurgence of le-gal immigration began soon after a new immigration law was enacted in 1965. Meanwhile, the end of the bracero (guest-worker) program in 1964 generated a large flow of illegal aliens from Mexico. In their wisdom, the federal bureaucrats in charge of compiling statistical data proclaimed: “Let there be Hispanics!” and a new minority group was born. Today this group makes up 11 per cent of the U.S. population; and because of high immigration levels and high birth rates, it will reach 20 per cent by 2050 (at that time blacks will account for 12 per cent of the population). In a very short time, the United States has been transformed in ways that only forty years ago would have seemed unimaginable.

GJ

About the Author

George J. Borjas

THE growth of the United States’ Hispanic population in the past three decades is likely to stand as one of the most dramatic demographic shifts in this country’s history. The Bureau of the Census did not even have an official designation for a person of “Hispanic” origin as recently as 1960.

Things have changed, and they changed quickly. The resurgence of le-gal immigration began soon after a new immigration law was enacted in 1965. Meanwhile, the end of the bracero (guest-worker) program in 1964 generated a large flow of illegal aliens from Mexico. In their wisdom, the federal bureaucrats in charge of compiling statistical data proclaimed: “Let there be Hispanics!” and a new minority group was born. Today this group makes up 11 per cent of the U.S. population; and because of high immigration levels and high birth rates, it will reach 20 per cent by 2050 (at that time blacks will account for 12 per cent of the population). In a very short time, the United States has been transformed in ways that only forty years ago would have seemed unimaginable.