Challenges of the Ethnic Millennium
Continued, page 2 of 5
The 1990 census recorded the largest number of foreign-born persons in the history of the United States. They number 19.8 million or 7.9 percent of the total population. From 1820 to 1970, of the nearly 42 million people who immigrated to the United States, 34 million were Europeans. Since 1970, however, 97 percent of immigrants coming to the United States came from non-European countries; most of them from Latin America and Asia.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the 1980's represented the largest population change in this century. One out of every four Americans now claim African, Hispanic, Asian, or Native American ancestry. This is compared to one in five in the 1980 census.
In the 1990's, the Hispanic population increased by 35%, reaching 30 million. At this growth rate, the Hispanic population will increase to 39 million by 20100, surpassing the African-American population. The Asian population now number 7.3 million and are expected to grow to 22 million by 2020.
This phenomenal growth is undergirded by the youth of these ethnic groups. The median age of Anglo Americans is now 33 years of age. Compare that to Native Americans with a median age of 22.7; the Hispanics, 25.6; and the Asians, 27.
These ethnic groups are living the "American dream," and they are educated and prosperous. Asian-Americans have the highest median income in the United States at $42,250. Thirty-nine percent of Asian-Americans have college degrees, almost twice the proportion for Anglos at 22 percent.
The most dramatic population shift is occurring in the mega cities of America. Los Angeles has the second largest population of Filipinos, Koreans, Mexicans, and Salvadorans of any city in the world. Along with these groups are large numbers of Chinese, Ethiopians, Asian Indians, Indonesians, Iranians, Pacific Islanders, Druze, Tamils, and Vietnamese. More than 80 languages are spoken daily in Los Angles, where the ethnics now outnumber the Anglos.
In cities like San Francisco and New York, a Chinese person can go to school, marry, and live almost their entire lives without speaking to a non-Chinese. Among Asians, 87 percent prefer speaking their native language at home. Eighty-three percent of Hispanics speak Spanish at home.
According to Business Week, without these new immigrants America's 10 largest cities would have shrunk by 6.8 percent in the 1980s. Instead, with the influx of these immigrants they grew by 4.7 percent. They are rebuilding the inner-cities of America.
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