As far as our largest minority group is concerned, I spent a considerable amount of time working with (largely second generation) Mexican American kids in Chicago a few years back. Whatever prejudices they may have had, they had no problem defining themselves as Americans, albeit as "ethnic Americans." Some of the kids I counseled even wound up joining the military.
Right now we have between 15 and 22 million foreign nationals living in the U.S., undocumented. That leaves out those who have been documented and started through the process in the last five years. That would probably add another five million.
Once a figure I was willing to view with some skecpticism, the three million per year figure is looking more and more like it is the real thing.
It's 2005. By 2015 upwards of 36 million more undocumented immigrants, mostly from Mexico will enter this nation. Add that to the 15 to 25 we are already here, and that's around 50 million. Add births to that 50 million. Suddenly that 50 million becomes 60 to 75 million. That's 2015.
Ten years after that you can add another 40 millon or so, and the ten years after that another 50 million. By the way, that's around 157 million hispanics in 30 years. Of course, that's just if a minimal birthrate is applied.
I've seen the arguement that Mexico only has about 98 million people, so this couldn't be possible. Actually, if there were only four or five million births in Mexico each year, three million Mexican nationals could pour across our borders each year, forever.
A lot of people just don't want to believe it. These are the figures we're talking about.
And that, ultimately, is what will save America. Prospects of a "Mexican invasion" seem a lot less threatening now that we've seen what an Arab invasion looks like.