Thread: Hispanic, Asian populations fuel California's growth

Hispanic, Asian populations fuel California's growth

By William M. Welch, USA TODAY
3/8/2011

LOS ANGELES — California's growth in the past decade was fueled by big increases in Hispanic and Asian populations, although Hispanic growth didn't keep up the pace of the 1990s, data released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau show.

The Hispanic population, which can be of any race, increased by more than 3 million people, up 27.8%, in the 2010 Census. That was slower growth than the 45.1% in the 2000 Census. Hispanics make up 37.6% of California's population, up from 32.4% a decade earlier.

The state's Asian population rose 30.9%, an increase of 1.1 million people, the Census Bureau said.

Those increases were offset by declines in the non-Hispanic white population and the African-American population.

The state's white population declined 5.4% from 2000 to 2010, the Census said, and black population declined 0.8%.

California's population, 37.3 million, is up 10%, the slowest growth ever recorded in the nation's largest state. The Census Bureau released the overall figure in December, and Tuesday's report provided details on city and county populations as well as ethnicity and race.

The figures showed that California's child population is increasingly Hispanic, too. Non-Hispanic white child population dropped 21%, and the black child population dropped nearly 20%, said Kenneth Johnson, demographer at the University of New Hampshire.

Hans Johnson, demographer at the Public Policy Institute of California, said the figures reflect the reality already seen in California's public schools, where a majority of students are Latino.

"It's quite clear that the future of California depends on the successful integration of immigrants and their children into our economy and society," he said.

Non-Hispanic whites now are 40.1 % of the state's population, down from almost 46.7% in 2000. Non-Hispanic African Americans are 5.8% of the state total, down from 6.4%. Asians now make up 12.8% of the state population, up from 10.8%.

"California is becoming a more heavily Latino state," says Tom Saenz, president of MALDEF, the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund. "Well above one-third of the state is now Latino ... Latinos are growing in every state and region of the country."

That means rising voting strength for Hispanics, who in the last election were 22% of voters, Saenz said. Polling showed they voted overwhelmingly for Democrats, who swept statewide offices last November despite a Republican trend elsewhere in the nation.

The population total means California does not gain a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives for the first time since 1930. Saenz said he expects the population change to produce more Hispanic representation in Congress after district maps are redrawn to reflect the Census findings,

California continued to see rapid expansion of inland areas. Coastal communities saw much slower rates of growth.

Although hit hard by unemployment and home foreclosures, the inland Southern California counties of Riverside and San Bernardino grew by 41.7% and 19.1% respectively.

Los Angeles grew 2.6%, to 3,792,621. Among the state's next four biggest cities, San Diego grew 6.9%, San Jose 5.7%, and San Francisco 3.7%. The Central Valley city of Fresno, California's fifth-biggest city, grew 15.7%.

"This is the first time, really ... that California hasn't grown substantially faster than the nation and received additional members of Congress," said Hans Johnson, the demographer. "So it is a kind of sea change for California."

The inland increases came despite the devastating impact of the housing collapse and decline in construction jobs. The area remained attractive primarily because of lower housing costs and, until the recession, job opportunities.

"For the last four decades, inland areas of the state have been growing at a faster rate of growth than coastal areas," Hans Johnson said. "That is certainly a reflection of the lower cost of housing and the building out of coastal regions."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/cen ... 9_ST_N.htm