Thread: Grand Island NE-A shift in population and Local Reaction

A shift in population

By Harold Reutter
harold.reutter@theindependent.com

Published: Sunday, October 16, 2011 11:46 PM CDT

A projection of Hall County’s population in the year 2040 predicts the county will be majority Hispanic.

Woods & Poole Economics’ total projected population for Hall County is 67,667, which would be an increase of nearly 15.5 percent during the three decades.

That would be much slower growth than recent years, when Hall County’s population grew by 9.5 percent in just one decade.

A more interesting prediction is how that population will grow by ethnic group. Woods & Poole predicts Hall County’s Hispanic population will be more than 35,300 people, which would be 52 percent of the county. Whites would be just more than 28,615 residents, or 42 percent.

Thirty years from now, blacks, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, and Native Americans are projected to be 5.5 percent of Hall County’s population.

Projecting population 30 years into the future is a dicey proposition. Those projections depend on a number of assumptions. One of the most important assumptions is that the JBS Swift & Co. plant will still be operating in 2040. Swift, Grand Island’s largest employer, has attracted immigrant families from all over the world.

Yet, if the particulars are in dispute, the general trend may be less subject to debate.

Hall, Adams and Buffalo counties are all predicted to have higher population numbers than their official population from the 2010 census.

That would continue a trend, because Hall, Adams and Buffalo counties all had higher populations in the 2010 census than they did 30 years before.

Merrick, Loup, Garfield, Wheeler, Custer, Valley, Greeley, Sherman, Boone, Nance and Polk counties are all projected to have lower populations in 2040. That’s also part of a 30-year trend on each side of the 2010 census.

Hall County is projected to be a plurality county by 2035, with no one ethnic group exceeding 50 percent. In that year, Hall County is expected to have 65,962 residents, with 49 percent of the total composed of white residents and nearly 46 percent composed of Hispanic residents.

When black residents, Native American and Asian residents are added to Hispanic residents, Woods & Poole projects that Hall County will be majority minority in 2035, with 51 percent of the county’s residents among those ethnic groups.

The city school district is already in that position, according to preliminary 2011-12 enrollment figures from the Grand Island Public Schools.

White students account for nearly 47 percent of Grand Island’s preschool through 12th-grade enrollment. Hispanic students are about 46 percent.

When Hispanic, American Indian, Asian, black or African-American, Pacific Islander and students of two or more races are added together, so-called ethnic minorities make up 53 percent of Grand Island’s total enrollment for 2011-12.

GIPS enrollment makes up about 15 percent of Hall County’s total population.

The school enrollment picture changes when all school enrollment in Hall County is counted, but it still shows a very diverse student body. According to the Nebraska Department of Education, Hall County had 12,014 students at the end of the 2010-11 school year.

Of that total, 57 percent was white and 43 percent was various ethnic groups, with Hispanics being the single largest so-called ethnic minority at just under 40 percent. All school enrollment, both public and private in Hall County, is about 20 percent of the county’s population.

That broader countywide look is likely why Woods & Poole is not predicting a majority minority status for Hall County until 2035 or 2040.

Adding weight to the argument that Hall County and Grand Island might one day be majority minority is the fact that both the county and the city would have lost population between the 1990 and 2000 censuses if it had not been for the influx of Hispanic residents.

That exact same pattern repeated itself between the 2000 and 2010 censuses.

Woods & Poole is also projecting other Nebraska counties will be majority minority by 2040. It says Douglas, Dawson, Thurston and Dakota counties will all have more than 50 percent of their residents composed of various so-called ethnic minority groups. Saline County is predicted to have a population of more than 40 percent ethnic minority residents by 2040.

The state is projected to remain a majority white state in 2040.

Whites are projected to be 68 percent of the state’s population in 2040. Hispanics are projected to be the next largest ethnic group at 22 percent. When all other ethnic groups are added to Hispanics, the total of ethnic minorities in Nebraska will be 32 percent.

The United States will be closer to Hall County’s experience than Nebraska’s, according to Woods & Poole. By 2040, it is projecting that the United States will be 52 percent white, with all other so-called ethnic minorities combined constituting 48 percent of the nation’s population.

http://theindependent.com/articles/2011 ... 379073.txt

Reactions diverse to increased diversity




By Harold Reutter
harold.reutter@theindependent.com

Published: Saturday, October 15, 2011 11:48 PM CDT

Reactions to Hall County’s and Grand Island’s increasing diversity vary widely, from proposing an immigration moratorium to ensuring all Grand Island students receive a quality education to seeing the current wave of immigrant families fitting in with America’s tradition of assimilating people from around the world.

"I’d like to see a moratorium on it (immigration) for 10 years," said Grand Island resident Max Cates, who has been a letter to the editor writer who has criticized illegal immigration.

Actually, Cates said there needs to be a temporary end to all immigration, both legal and illegal.

"These people (who have already immigrated) could be assimilated," Cates said, explaining his desire to see the moratorium. "People who don’t want to be assimilated should be sent back to their own countries."

Cates has noticed the changing demographics in Grand Island’s schools, saying anytime there is a picture of Grand Island students, it is likely to be of a Hispanic student, not a white student.

Superintendent Rob Winter said the projection that Hall County will become a majority minority county in 30 years only emphasizes the work being done by the school system, which is already majority minority.

"It means our students will be community leaders in 20 years," Winter said.

He said that means the education today’s students receive must give them the skills to be successful when they turn 35, 40 or 45.

Winter said giving students the necessary skills to be productive citizens will mean Grand Island will continue to grow and "be a good place to raise a family."

The reality is that educating so-called ethnic minority students often requires more resources and more time, Winter said. He said the reasons for that have nothing to do with skin pigmentation.

More may be required if students are English language learners or if they come from families with lower incomes, which means they may have had fewer opportunities to attend a good preschool or have experiences that lead to greater language acquisition before entering kindergarten, Winter said.

The current enrollment for the Grand Island Public Schools shows that the district has 47 percent white students, with 53 percent Hispanic, Asian, American Indian, and black or African-American. No one group by itself is more than 50 percent.

Winter said if Hall County and Grand Island eventually match the school district’s demographics, adults from various so-called minority groups will become "the majority of breadwinners in the county."

Carlos Barcenas, executive director of the Multicultural Coalition of Grand Island, said he believes America still has a tradition of "being a great melting pot of cultures."

Barcenas said he entered the local school system as a freshman at Senior High, where he took classes such as American history and world history.

"I’m grateful for the things that I was taught by my (Mexican) culture," Barcenas said. Some of the positive things he learned include respect for your country and family togetherness.

While his respect for his country was originally directed toward Mexico, he now respects his new country, the United States, Barcenas said.

He said he continues to value the ideal of being part of a close-knit family, but he noted the faster pace of life in the United States makes it difficult for families to spend time together. Barcenas said adults are busy with jobs, while young people often are pulled away from home by school activities.

He said that, when it comes to attachment to traditions from the land of their birth, adults in immigrant families have the strongest ties. Adults try to pass on the traditions of their native land to their children, but when children go to school, they are surrounded by American culture.

As a result, young people usually know about the traditions and culture of their parents’ homeland, but they are very much immersed in the American way of life, Barcenas said.

He pointed out that immigrant children recite the Pledge of Allegiance first thing each morning when they attend Grand Island elementary schools. He thinks that’s a good custom for all kids.

In Grand Island today, it is not just a case of Americans learning about Hispanic cultures (each Latin American nation has its own culture) and Hispanics learning about American culture. It is about people learning about a broad variety of cultures from around the world, Barcenas said.

One part of the American dream is that parents hope their children’s lives will be at least a little bit better than their own.

"I think that is what has drawn all of us here from the very beginning, looking for a better opportunity, looking for a better life," Barcenas said.

He said today’s immigrants continue to want "a better life for themselves and for their family."

However, some immigrant families might still find barriers even in the U.S. to that better life, Barcenas said. Sometimes the barrier might be financial, and sometimes it might be legal status, as when an infant is brought illegally into the country by his or her parents, then does well academically all the way through high school graduation, only to find it impossible to go to college.

http://theindependent.com/articles/2011 ... 607418.txt

How accurate are 30-year projections?





Published: Saturday, October 15, 2011 11:48 PM CDT

How accurate is a 30-year population projection? It is advisable to take such a long-range prediction with the proverbial "large grain of salt."

That’s what Woods & Poole Economics itself says about its projections.

"The longer the forecast horizon, the larger the AAPE (average absolute percent error). Thus, for all metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs), one-year population projections have been accurate within plus or minus 1.3 percent, compared to plus or minus 5.7 percent for the 10-year projection."

In other words, the shorter the time frame, the more accurate the projection. Woods & Poole also said that the more people there are in a particular area, the more accurate the projection should be.

"For all counties, the AAPE for eight-year population projections was plus or minus 7 percent. However, for counties with population under 50,000 in 2000, the eight-year projection AAPE was plus or minus 7.4 percent. Similarly, for larger geographies, the AAPEs are usually lower."

In Central Nebraska, Woods & Poole’s projections are dealing with counties far below 50,000 population. However, it is easy to believe that a rural county whose population in 2010 was lower than it was 30 years ago will have an even lower population 30 years from now, especially when that county’s peak population was reached in 1910, 1920 or 1930.

Hall County, on the other hand, has grown with each official census. And during the past 20 years, the changing demographics of the Grand Island Public Schools have been a reliable indicator that Grand Island’s and Hall County’s population will be more diverse with each official U.S. Census.

http://theindependent.com/articles/2011 ... 983186.txt