Posted on 01/09/2009 5:05:31 PM PST by real_patriotic_american
Riverside and San Bernardino counties added more Latino residents between 2000 and 2007 than all but three other U.S. counties, a new analysis of U.S. Census data found.
The report, by the nonpartisan Washington, D.C.-based Pew Hispanic Center, also found that most Latino population growth is now from new births. In the 1980s and 1990s, it was mostly from immigration.
That means no matter what happens to the immigration rate, the Latino population of Riverside and San Bernardino counties will continue to grow steadily, reaching a majority within several years, experts say.
Riverside County's Hispanic population surged 60 percent between 2000 and 2007, and San Bernardino County's rose 40 percent. Los Angeles County had only a 10 percent increase -- although because it has a much larger population, it added more Hispanic residents than any county in the nation.
More than 600,000 Latinos became Riverside and San Bernardino county residents in the first seven years of the decade, pushing the population to more than 1.8 million. The Inland area is now about 45 percent Latino.
The Inland region's non-Hispanic population also rose significantly, but not as quickly as the Latino population. Latinos in the Inland area are, on average, younger than non-Hispanics, and Latina women have a higher fertility rate, especially among immigrants, said Hans Johnson, associate director of the nonpartisan San Francisco-based Public Policy Institute of California.
That portends a big increase in Hispanic births in the Inland area, said Johnson, co-author of "The Inland Empire in 2015," a demographic study that was released in April. A continued influx of immigrants from Latin America -- and especially of immigrants and U.S.-born Latinos from coastal Southern California counties will also contribute to the surge in the region's Latino population, Johnson predicted.
Latino migration in the Inland area is different from most places. Only about 20 percent of new Hispanic residents arrive directly from Latin America, Johnson said. The rest come from elsewhere in the United States, especially Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties, he said.
In most of the country, Latinos move to be near family and jobs. The biggest reason Hispanics -- both immigrants and U.S. residents -- move to the Inland area is lower home prices and rents than in coastal counties, he said. Living here allows many to keep their jobs in coastal counties and still be near family, Johnson said.
The credit crisis is probably slowing the Latino influx. But with housing still cheaper in the Inland area than coastal counties, Latinos will continue to move here, especially when the economy improves, he said.
"This bust we're experiencing right now will return to a boom in the next seven or eight years," Johnson said.
Nationwide, the Latino population grew 29 percent between 2000 and 2007. The non-Hispanic population rose only 4 percent.
Latinos accounted for more than half of the United States' population growth, even though they comprise only 15 percent of the total population.
A previous Pew study found that immigration is slowing. But many of the immigrants already here are having children, as are the U.S.-born descendents of immigrants.
"We're now seeing the secondary impact of international migration from the 1980s and 1990s," said Richard Fry, senior research associate at Pew and author of the new report.
The 1990s saw exponential Hispanic population increases in parts of the South and Midwest that previously had few Latino residents. The South continues to have the biggest share of Latino population growth, but the West's share of growth rose in the 2000s, Fry said.
Latinos moved in huge numbers to small towns in the South and Midwest because of jobs, and with fewer jobs, they are more likely to settle in areas with large, longstanding Hispanic populations, such as Southern California, said Susan Brown, an associate professor of sociology at UC Irvine who studies immigrant-population trends.
The economic slowdown is affecting the entire country but immigrants are more likely to have friends or family in established enclaves in Southern California who can help them find jobs or provide a place to stay while they look for work, said Todd Sorensen, an assistant professor of economics at UC Riverside and an expert on immigration.
That will lead many immigrants who otherwise may have tried their luck in a Southern boomtown to instead settle in places like Southern California, he said.
"People are less likely to take chances in bad times," he said.
Reach David Olson at 951-368-9462 or dolson@PE.com
There’s nothing “irresponsible” about having children—any more than there would be something irresponsible about maximizing profit or increasing crop yield. You are unwittingly repeating a group-think, far-left code of behaviour in advocating population control, and it cleary violates the “multiply and replenish” edicts of the Bible. As to the obvious choice — “converting them” — we all have a responsibility to talk up, with any immigrant group, the virtues of a free markets, the rule of law, and the value of private property. Don’t make the mistake of blaming our out of control statism on the immigrant groups who have been encouraged to take advantage of it by leftists demogogues.
“The only real solution would’ve been when Prop 187 passed to have had it implemented. When an activist judge overturned that, we were doomed. And no other action would have fixed the upcoming problems.”
Just keep in mind who those were working behind the scenes to destroy prop. 187. It’s still the same people who have been in charge of recent immigration policy...Grover Norquist, Steve Moore, etc.
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