June 9, 2008


From Orlando Sentinel
Hispanic community growing in size, diversity in Central Florida
Victor Manuel Ramos | Orlando Sentinel Staff Writer
8:50 AM EDT, June 9, 2008

Orlando's Hispanic population is not only growing but also becoming more diverse.

Aside from Puerto Ricans and Cubans, who have been coming to Florida for decades, the Latino population of Metro Orlando now also includes significant numbers of Mexicans, Colombians, Dominicans and Venezuelans.

During the next 40 years or so, Hispanics are projected to continue growing in the region, the state and the nation.

It's a community that remains in flux. The Hispanic population includes immigrants from Latin America and U.S. citizens born and raised in the U.S. or its territories.



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Hispanic immigrants cherish old, new cultural ties Researchers say that over time, more of them will be born and bred in the United States.

"We have a growing population of what we call 'second-generation Hispanics,' " said Jeffrey Passel, a senior demographer with the Pew Hispanic Center in Washington, D.C. "A larger and larger share of the young-adult population is going to be U.S.-born with immigrant parents. While there may be some identity as Mexican-American, Puerto Rican or Cuban-American, the fact that they are growing up here changes everything."

Those Hispanics of the future, Passel said, may by and large prefer to speak English; could have more tenuous connections to their heritage; and will likely continue to spread out beyond urban areas where immigrant communities have historically settled.

The U.S. Census Bureau used to count "Hispanics" or "Latinos" -- both terms are used interchangeably on census forms -- as Mexicans, Cubans and Puerto Ricans while lumping the rest into "other Hispanics." The "other" category has grown steadily as immigrants from other parts of Latin America seek economic opportunity and flee political and social turmoil in their countries of origin.

Puerto Ricans make up about half of the Hispanic population in Orlando, according to the latest U.S. Census Bureau figures. During the past two decades, Mexicans have become the second-largest Hispanic subgroup here. Cubans, now the fifth-largest Hispanic subgroup in Orlando, have been settling in the area since the 1970s but continue to concentrate mostly in South Florida.

Among those in the "other Hispanic" category, tracked by the census since 2000:

*Colombians, many of whom have fled their country's violence, have become the third-largest Hispanic group in Orlando.

*Dominicans, who follow Colombians in population size, have moved here from New York and their Caribbean nation in search of a middle-class lifestyle.

*Venezuelans have increasingly found their way to Orlando, in many cases seeking asylum after their country's Socialist President Hugo Ch�vez took power in 1999.

*Although smaller in numbers, thousands of Hondurans and Ecuadoreans also have settled in Orlando.

While Latino immigration -- particularly from Mexico and Central America -- has been the subject of much controversy and public-policy debate over those in the country illegally, some say the increase in Hispanics is not unlike the flow of previous generations of immigrants that made the U.S. the racially and ethnically diverse nation it is today.

"This country has been shaped by diversity," said Jos� Maunez Cuadra, director of the Latin American, Caribbean and Latino Studies Program at the University of Central Florida. "These diverse groups we see here now will at some point meld with the rest of the population, making way for other new groups to grow."


Victor Manuel Ramos can be reached at vramos@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-6186. See printed edition for chart details.