Hispanics account for more than half of U.S. population growth

Hispanics account for more than half the U.S. population growth this decade, indicating a powerful new sign of their demographic clout, according to a Pew Hispanic Center report released Thursday.

The Hispanic population also expanded dramatically in the 1990s, but in that decade its growth accounted for less than 40 percent of nation's total population increase.

Hispanics now represent 50.5 percent of the U.S. population growth since 2000, although they were only 15 percent of the population in 2007.

The Pew report also highlights a significant new driver of the population increases for the nation's largest minority: Unlike the 1990s when immigration was the major factor in Hispanic population growth, births in the U.S. are mostly responsible for the increases this decade.

Harris County's population is now 39 percent Hispanic, the second highest percentage among the nation's 3,141 counties, according to Pew. The addition of 400,853 new Hispanic residents to Harris County between 2000 and 2007 represents the third largest numerical increase in the nation, behind Los Angeles and Maricopa County, Ariz., according to Pew's analysis of U.S. Census figures.

''We've been saying this all along," said Laura Murillo, president and chief executive of the Houston Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. ''We think the demographics of the Hispanic community have, and will continue, to grow steadily. This is due to the fact we have many people who are second- and third-generation Hispanics in this country."

Murillo said the chamber's corporate sponsorships have quadrupled, a sign that companies are eager to tap into the growing economic power of Hispanic consumers. The Houston chamber is now the largest Hispanic chamber in the state, and membership in recent years has increased from 600 to 2,800, she said.

''The role that Hispanics play, for Houston and the country, is becoming ever more important," Murillo said.

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It's been said that Bush is allowing the Mexican invasion because they will be the front line in battling the Muslim freaks when it comes to crunch time..... he doesn't have the balls to crack wood on the Allah worshipers (for he would be an evil racist) and so he will use the Hispanic hordes to do it for him.....and since the Mexicans are breeding as much as the Muslims are, and the Americans are not, that the Latin American masses are America's only hope.

That said, I believe most if not all Americans have more in common with a by and large family values population with by and large conservative values of the Christian kind as opposed to the psychopathic stone-or-behead-those-who-aren't-like-you Middle Eastern types.

I didn't come up with this theory. I've only read about it and am passing it along for your interest. Have no clue if it's true. I'd be interested to know what other Freepers think of this.

Thanks for posting this. I wonder how conservatives plan to promote their views to these emerging demographics while they are angrily stereotyping these groups of people.

Without a doubt, there are opportunistic immigrants (and liberals and other eeevil "theys") which deserve American scorn, even anger. But hey, I hear "they" (on a polite day) refer to "us" who live in the typically red states as "the bubba vote".

Wouldn't "they" be surprised to learn that, on the first day of early voting, I stood in line with ALL types of people: college students, elderly people, Black men and women, Asians, Hispanics, a couple of disabled people, a few folks of possibly Middle Eastern heritage, a man wearing a yamaka. Some looked bored; others scanned their polling instruction sheets eagerly. Some wore expensive clothes; others looked poor. One older couple looked like farmer/rancher types. For all I know, someone standing in line with me might have been gay. I didn't ask. Maybe a woman a few people down the line had an abortion. That guy standing next to her might have entered the country illegally. Was that woman holding her baby a single mom? I didn't ask. I also didn't take a poll to see which were atheists, Muslims, Catholics, Protestants, or Buddhists, tax cheats, high school drop-outs, CEOs, small business owners, unemployed, etc.

I would not presume to know how any of them voted, based on their appearance, because those people sure didn't look like "the bubba vote" to me. So, could "they" be wrong to stereotype "us" in the red states that way?

I know I'm unlikely to change any minds about painting whole groups of people with broad brushes. But it does seem to me, if the statistics are accurate, that stereotype-based hostility is an ineffective means of positively influencing their votes.

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