HOUSTON — The United States grew steadily more diverse last year, with Latinos holding on to their rank as the nation's largest and fastest-growing minority group, a trend with far-reaching implications for American politics and immigration policies.
Newly released figures from the U.S. Census Bureau show that the nation's Latino population grew by 1.4 million in 2007 to reach 45.5 million people, or 15.1% of the total U.S. population of 301.6 million. Blacks ranked as the second-largest minority group, at 40.7 million.
Overall, the nation's 102.5 million minorities accounted for 34% of the U.S. population, a new milepost on America's inexorable journey toward greater diversity and a harbinger of the growing political clout of nonwhites.
The latest population figures "certainly do suggest some dramatic changes, particularly in states like Texas and California that have experienced these population shifts first and fastest," said Karl Eschbach, the official Texas state demographer and a professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio. "What does this imply for the future of our country? That's a complex question. I would predict that by 2040, we would have a very different definition of majority and minority in America."
Tensions over America's growing Spanish-speaking population have been mounting in recent years, driven by the fears of many political conservatives that the country is being overrun by both legal and illegal immigrants, the majority of them from Mexico.
Anti-immigrant groups commonly estimate that 12 million illegal immigrants are currently living in the country, and a patchwork of laws cracking down on them and mandating English as Americans' official language have flourished at the local, state and national levels.
But the new population figures shed little light on that debate, because the Census Bureau does not attempt to determine immigration status as part of its surveys. What census officials are able to say is that of the 1.4 million increase in the Latino population last year, about 38% was attributable to new immigrants entering the country, legally or illegally.
"There's a real perception among some Americans right now that immigration is suddenly at their front door," said David A. Shirk, director of the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego. "They are not used to it. They are not convinced that those groups are going to effectively assimilate. And they are very concerned that our way of life in the United States is going to have to change as a result of that."
