Majority/Minority no one found this? I did a search...

[mapwife]

Published: 08.23.2006

Tucson's minority residents top 50%
Phoenix also joins ranks of minority-majority cities
By Lourdes Medrano
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
Population breakdown
Tucson population (total) 507,362
Black/African American: 19,129 3.8%
Am. Indian/Alaskan native 14,848 2.9%
Asian 12,782 2.5%
Native Hawaiian/ Pac. Islander 759 0.1%
Hispanic/Latino (any race) 206,958 40.8%
*Source: 2005 American Community Survey and U.S. Census Bureau
The signs have been there for some time. José is a popular baby name in Arizona, and salsa has outsold ketchup for years around the country.
Now Tucson officially has joined a list of 31 cities with a predominantly minority population. Phoenix and Denver also are new additions.
In the Old Pueblo, slightly more than half of the 507,362 residents belong to an ethnic minority group. Most, about 41 percent, are Hispanic, according to the latest U.S. Census Bureau data. In all of Pima County, Anglos remain the majority.
"Cities in the West are now experiencing a lot of the diversity that was first experienced in California,"said William Frey, a demographics expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.
Although his numbers vary slightly, Frey's own analysis of census data also shows that the population growth from 2000 to 2005 transformed Tucson into a predominantly minority city.
Frey noted a wide age gap between the minority and Anglo populations. Particularly in Arizona, he said, minority residents tend to be younger while Anglos are older.
Lorraine Lee, who leads the nonprofit Chicanos Por La Causa, said the demographic shift will be felt in many areas, including education and politics. Minorities, she said, eventually should be reflected in all sectors of the community —both public and private.
"We should not be feared, but rather, we should all work together to recognize that through our differences we can become stronger and better as a community," said Lee, who is of Mexican and Chinese descent.
Celestino Fernandez, a University of Arizona sociologist, noted that along with the growth in minority residents come challenges to better meet their needs. In the education field, for instance, there is a shortage of teachers committed to working with culturally diverse student populations, he said.
The large numbers of minority residents don't necessarily "translate into social justice, equality and opportunity," he said.
The 2005 figures are from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey released last week. It provides yearly data from about 3 million households nationwide.
Population breakdown
Tucson population (total) 507,362
Black/African American: 19,129 3.8%
Am. Indian/Alaskan native 14,848 2.9%
Asian 12,782 2.5%
Native Hawaiian/ Pac. Islander 759 0.1%
Hispanic/Latino (any race) 206,958 40.8%
*Source: 2005 American Community Survey and U.S. Census Bureau
http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/printDS/143330

[reptile09]

Does that mean that whites will now be eligible for affirmative action?

[mapwife]

Posted on Thu, Aug. 24, 2006

Census: Anglos almost in the minority

By NEIL STRASSMAN
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER

Arlington's population has changed so quickly that the city's Anglo majority is rapidly becoming a minority, census figures show.

The city's Anglo population has decreased from near 60 percent of residents in 2000 to about 50 percent of the estimated 348,965 residents in 2005.

The 1990 Census showed Arlington with an Anglo population of 78.5 percent.

"We knew this was coming," Mayor Robert Cluck said. "We are proud of Arlington's diversity, and we need to make our government reflective of our community."

Of the six Texas cities that are larger than Arlington, five -- Fort Worth, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and El Paso -- have minority-majority populations. Only Austin has an Anglo majority.

The changes in Arlington's ethnic and racial makeup are based on census figures released this month. The estimates can have a significant margin of error because of the difficulty in counting minority populations.

The figures also show Arlington's total population at about 12,000 fewer people than the North Central Texas Council of Governments' January estimate.

The trend of a decreasing Anglo percentage -- fueled largely by Hispanic immigration to Texas and the West and growing Vietnamese, African-American and Middle Eastern populations in Arlington -- is expected to continue, demographers and economists say.

"It's a huge change," said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, a nonpartisan research organization in Washington.

Similarly, Frey said, the census figures released this month show that the Anglo populations in Phoenix, Tucson, Ariz., and Denver have dropped below 50 percent. Gains in those cities' Hispanic populations are driving the change.

"This is not whites leaving the city," he said. "The change in the racial composition has to do with immigration."

What is new is the rapidity with which the shift is occurring, said Bernard Weinstein, a University of North Texas professor of applied economics.

"Fifteen years ago, demographers talked about this happening several decades from now, in 2025," Weinstein said. "In the D-FW area, 70 percent of the population growth has been among Hispanics."

The Hispanic population in North Texas is now greater than the Hispanic population of the Rio Grande Valley, Weinstein said. The political implications of the growth are that the area can expect more Hispanic officeholders on the local level, Weinstein said.

But there is a lag. Arlington, for example, has elected only two Hispanics, former Councilman Dan Serna and Councilman Robert Rivera, and one African-American, former Mayor Elzie Odom.

"Arlington is a global community, and we should use that diversity to the city's advantage and celebrate it," said Rivera, who represents southeast Arlington and is the only ethnic minority on the council. "We are daily moving toward a more inclusive city."

It's not just Hispanics who are moving to Arlington.

In the past few years, there has been a constant stream of Vietnamese moving to Arlington from California, said Andy Nguyen, chairman of the Vietnamese-American Community of Greater Tarrant County.

"They can get good value for their home in California, buy a house here and open a business, and the cost of doing business here is less," Nguyen said. "But it's not healthy for ethnic communities to operate as an isolated island. We need to be fully integrated into mainstream society."

The Arlington school district is working hard to serve the city's diverse population, Superintendent Mac Bernd said. The school district became 52.3 percent minority during the 2000-01 school year. Last year, it was 64.5 percent minority, school officials said.

"One of the challenges is to be able to work with students who don't speak English, who come to us from different cultures and who learn in different ways," Bernd said. "It's healthy for our school district and healthy for all of us."

Francisco Guerrero's career is indicative of such change. A former high school Spanish teacher, Guerrero is now employed as a campus translator at Sam Houston High School. He meets with parents who don't speak English as part of the district's continuing effort to provide support to its diverse student population.

"This school is open to parents," Guerrero said.

Art Robles, chairman of the Arlington Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, says the key is building trust among the different communities.

"It has to happen. All of us contribute to our communities," Robles said. "Hispanics bring a lot to the table. We're involved socially, politically and economically, and that's an issue that has to be looked at."

Staff writer Jeff Claassen contributed to this report.

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/local/1 ... tstory.jsp

[mapwife]

Minorities dominant in Phoenix
Tucson also joins census list of cities where non-Anglos make up majority

Jon Kamman
The Arizona Republic
Aug. 22, 2006 12:00 AM

Minorities are now in the majority in Phoenix and Tucson, census data reveal.

The state's two largest cities experienced dramatic growth of their minority populations from 2000 to 2005, and a leading demographer said Monday that they can expect more of the same.

"It represents the new wave of urban growth for the West," said William Frey, an authority on population and migration trends for the Washington, D.C.-based Brookings Institution.

"What used to be just a California experience is now spreading throughout the West."

Denver also ended 2005 with a minority population slightly larger than non-minorities.

With Phoenix, Tucson and Denver joining the ranks of minority-predominant cities, the list now includes 31 of the nation's largest 50 cities.

Among medium-size cities, Yuma and Avondale have had minority majorities since the 2000 census or earlier.

Valley professionals who deal with minority issues say that although minorities are not a homogeneous group, the new balance is good for communities in general.

"I hope people see it as a positive," said Conrado Gomez, an assistant clinical professor of education at Arizona State University Polytechnic. "It's just the way things are going to be."

Anita Luera, vice president of the Valle Del Sol behavioral health center and director of its 20-year-old leadership-development program aimed at Hispanics, said there is little fundamental difference between the two populations.

"People shouldn't be afraid of it," Luera said. "Minorities are the same as majorities in wanting to have better lives, schools, education and safer communities."

Gomez said the heightened minority numbers will be felt mostly in two areas: politics and education.

"More Hispanics and non-Whites will be going into politics. I hope people understand that's the American way," he said. Education will have to adjust, he added.

"What is studied in school also has to reflect that population so those students can see themselves in their studies," Gomez said.

"Minority" for statistical purposes means everyone except Whites who are not of Hispanic ancestry. This includes Native Americans, Blacks, Asians and Pacific Islanders, people who designate themselves "some other race" and the Hispanic ethnic group, regardless of race.

The latest figures are the product of a survey in which roughly one in every 40 households in the nation was contacted throughout 2005.

Although more than half of the residents within the city limits of Phoenix and Tucson are minorities, the predominance of Anglos in other communities gives Maricopa County a minority component of 38.8 percent and Pima County 41.9 percent.

The Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale metropolitan statistical area, which encompasses all Maricopa and Pinal counties, is 38.9 percent minority.

The Valley city with the smallest proportion of minorities is Scottsdale, with 14.3 percent.

Minorities are one-third or less of the populations of Chandler, Gilbert, Mesa, Peoria, Surprise and Tempe.

Frey said that Arizona, more than other places, faces a sharp age difference in racial and ethnic components.

Minorities, with higher fertility rates, larger families and younger workers, are concentrated in the younger population, while many middle-age and senior residents are Anglos, he said.

"You have both a generation gap and cultural gap, so to speak," Frey said.

He said minorities who migrated en masse to California in the past decade, swelling its population to minority-majority status, are now heading inland, while more are coming to the West from other parts of this country and abroad.

http://www.azcentral.com/php-bin/clickt ... y0822.html

[mapwife]

"It's just the way things are going to be." Thank you professor...

When will you be willing to not call yourself a "majority?" Did you let out a big cheer when you heard this news?

[CountFloyd]

"I hope people see it as a positive," said Conrado Gomez, an assistant clinical professor of education at Arizona State University Polytechnic. "It's just the way things are going to be."

Anita Luera, vice president of the Valle Del Sol behavioral health center and director of its 20-year-old leadership-development program aimed at Hispanics, said there is little fundamental difference between the two populations.

I wonder if these two would be saying the same thing if the new "immigrants" had last names like McAllister or O'Toole?

Somehow, I doubt it.

[moosetracks]

It's not that people are "afraid of it", as stated in the article, it's that new immigration was supposed to be more diverse.....so many from one country, so many from another.....not invasion from one or two countries!

[krazynbama]

It's not that people are "afraid of it", as stated in the article, it's that new immigration was supposed to be more diverse.....so many from one country, so many from another.....not invasion from one or two countries!

That's exactly it! I'm sick of hearing about how those opposing illegal immigration reform must be racists.....I am totally NOT racist, but moosetracks this is what comes through my head constantly....why do we get so many immigrants from a few countries? It needs to be fewer immigrants from a broader number of countries and of course all of it should be done legally. When so many people from one certain country keep sneaking across the border, I tend to be leary.

[loservillelabor]

....why do we get so many immigrants from a few countries?

These we're getting serve the purpose perfectly. They're puppets in the political arena. George Bush pulls the string and millions respond to their handlers wishes. We also have an excuse to disallow immigrants from Muslim countries?

[mapwife]

I'm so sure that the same people who say we shouldn't fear them are still throwing a party over this news that hasn't ended yet. Would you like another cerveza? Una Mas?