by José de la Isla
José de la Isla
Hispanic Link News Service
My take on a U.S. Census Bureau report which asserted that “minorities,” most of them Hispanic, would become the “majority” by 2042 brought a stream of disturbing responses from New England to California I see this as an irrelevant issue – in part because intermarriage will mediate and we will form huge gradations between one group and another.
One reader said right off, “I’d like to make it clear that I am not, to my knowledge, a racist and harbor no ill will to any group” but he was concerned for “my declining white population.”
Oh boy, do we have way to go a long way in developing an alternative to race-based consciousness. Even when they are given a chance to read love into the nation’s story, many people still respectfully decline.
Beliefs like that, when they take hold, can be hard to dislodge, much like a piece of meat lodged between your teeth.
Some statistical floss might help.
The Census Bureau had reported that today’s population of 305 million will increase to 400 million in 2039 and will increase to 439 million by 2050. The number made the news in mid-August because of the inference that a population shift would occur around 2042 when blacks, nearly 15 percent, and Asians, at about 9 percent, together with Hispanics will form a national majority.
A number of readers took this to mean whites were losing out. A national decline was imminent. Maybe a kind of tribulation.
I heard from a lady in Southern California who connected this population trend with her own situation: “I have a grandchild who is Hispanic.I see and hear a great deal about Hispanic attitudes towards Americans, and it’s not a pretty picture.”
I though it surprising that a grandmother had trouble equating her own grandchild’s attitude as Hispanic instead of an “American” attitude toward another “American.”
Since most Hispanics are mixed race – easily two-thirds have “white blood” – why not draw the conclusion that Hispanics are coming to the rescue by infusing new genes into the population pool? Statistically they could add up to 29 million to the “white” population.
Or is race purity the objective? Once tainted, it can never be cleansed?
The truth is, any form of enumeration is just plain silly. It implies an underlying racialism.
That happened when the Constitution created three-fifths of a person or policy led to blood quantum to determine who’s a Native American, and now the hypothetical white Hispanic and non-white Hispanics.
Instead, people have been making decisions about the future population on another basis. Ten years ago, 70 percent of white teens, 86 of black teens and 83 percent of Hispanic teens told CBS News pollsters they would date people of another race. They said two-thirds of their parents wouldn’t be bothered by it.
In 2000, Zogby America for Reuters reported 67 percent of 1,225 adults who were asked, said they approved their child having an interracial relationship, with 22 percent opposing, and 10 percent not sure.
Research shows, as a general rule of thumb, that for immigrant populations, the first generation is more resistant to marrying outside the group, the second less so, and by third generation hardly. For Hispanics it is 8/32/57 percent, from first to third generations.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign researchers estimated that of the total population in 2005 about 35.3 million were foreign born, and the second generation consisted of 21.1 million people with at least one parent born abroad. The third generation, made up of 221 million people have native-born parents, and they are the ones “for whom race and ethnicity are less important.”
The statistical tidal wave will increasingly weaken exclusive race-based decisions in the near future. What generation one belongs to, education and status will drive how mate choices are made – and that of course leads to family formation.
The odds are in favor of decisions made by falling in love and less on race. Who can go against that?
(José de la Isla writes a weekly commentary for Hispanic Link News Service. He may be contacted by e-mail at: joseisla3@yahoo.com). 2008
