Thread: They are a-changin'

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Posted on Sun, Aug. 14, 2005

They are a-changin'

Star-Telegram

The top-rated radio station in North Texas this spring didn't feature a country or rap or talking-head format. It was KESS/107.9 FM La Que Buena, a regional Mexican music station.

The top-rated local TV news broadcasts in the Dallas market for adults 18 to 34 aren't anchored by people named Jane or Tracy. Spanish-language Univision's Noticias 23, which airs on KUVN/Channel 23, ranked No. 1 at 5 and 10 p.m. in the May 2005 sweeps, topping the competition from every English-language station.

Neither fact comes as a surprise to people who track demographic changes in Texas, which is now a minority-majority state for the first time since ... oh, the days of the Republic of Texas.

In a census report released Thursday, Texas' minority population was estimated at 11.3 million, or 50.2 percent of the state's total population of 22.5 million. Although Anglos are still the state's largest individual population group, they no longer constitute the majority.

Viewed through the myopic lens that xenophobes and bigots use, this information is bad news for Anglos. Sadly, some people think the game of life must have losers in order for others to win, and therefore they are threatened by the numbers.

Facts are facts: Texas is changing - rapidly. By 2030, Texas will have a younger and more diverse population than most of the United States, according to projections made by state demographer Steve Murdock. Elderly Texans will tend to be Anglos. Young-er Texans - those in their most productive work years - will be overwhelmingly non-Anglo.

A clear example of this can be found in the enrollment statistics for the Fort Worth school district. Half of the more than 80,000 children who will start public school Monday in Cowtown speak something other than English as their primary language.

As goes the Lone Star State, so will the rest of the nation go: The Texas of today will be the United States of tomorrow. The Census Bureau has projected that by 2040, the U.S. population will be 53 percent Anglo and 47 percent non-Anglo. Those numbers mirror what Texas was - in 2003.

The message from Murdock, who heads the Texas State Data Center at Texas A&M University, hasn't changed during the years he's been studying and talking about the numbers: The future of all Texans is tied to the changes occurring and how the state's leadership handles them.

None of this has to be negative news if Texas - and the rest of the nation - is prepared to address the challenges inherent in a dynamic shift in demographics.

First and foremost, that means ensuring that all Texans have the skills and education necessary to be competitive in what is increasingly an international economy.

Contrary to what isolationists believe, the answer is not walling up the border between Texas and Mexico. The growth within the Latino population is not purely a function of immigration, legal or illegal. Even if the southern border were lined with guards and strung with barbed wire, it would have a negligible impact on the percentage of increase within the Hispanic population. The growth is a result of the birth rate within the Latino population already here.

Nor is this particular growth factor engraved in stone. As education and prosperity increase in any segment of the population, birth rates decline. The same goes for the second and third generations in families.

The challenge is to make sure that African-Americans and Hispanics receive the education and training that will enable them to prosper.

In 2000, African-American and Hispanic households in Texas recorded an average income that was less than two-thirds that of Anglos. Female-headed households had an average income of less than $25,000. Demand for publicly funded social and health care services was on the rise.

The fastest-growing segment of the population - Hispanics - lags behind in high school graduation rates, which affects employment possibilities and earning power.

If the state's elected, business, academic and community leaders don't pay attention, and if current trends persist, then the statistics would very well become alarming.

Sung to the tune of Bob Dylan's
"The Times They are a-Changin'"

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the illegals
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be up to your nosebone.
If your country to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start screamin'
Or we'll will sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide open
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that is silent
Will be he who's career has stalled
There's a immigration battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And criticize washington's silent stand
What part of it don't they understand
Your sons and your daughters
their futures being slammed
Your way of life is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out the word
you can lend a helping hand
For the times they are a-changin'.


The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The traitors now
Will later be outcast
As the present now
Will later be past
The political order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the commander now
Will later be jailed
For the times they are a-changin'.