Aug 062011

The 2010 censuses in the USA and Mexico have led to numerous reports on either side of the border. This post looks mainly at recent reports from the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of Pew Research Center, which describes itself as”a nonpartisan ‘fact tank’ that provides information on the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world.”

The total US population in 2010 was 308.7 million. The Pew report entitled U.S. Hispanic Country of Origin Counts for Nation, Top 30 Metropolitan Areas says the the USA had 50.5 million Hispanics in 2010, including 31.8 million of Mexican origin (63% of all Hispanics). [The categories are based on self-described family ancestry or place of birth in response to questions in the 2010 Census and the 2009 American Community Survey.] The population of Mexican-origin grew by 54% (11.2 million) between 2000 and 2010. Mexicans are the dominant Hispanic group in many major metropolitan areas, from Los Angeles to Chicago, and San Antonio to Atlanta, with some exceptions in the East, including Miami (Cubans) and New York (Puerto Ricans).

The report is accompanied by detailed statistical profiles, including Statistical Profile: Hispanics of Mexican Origin in the United States, 2009 that provides a concise summary of all the key data about the Mexican diaspora in the USA.

The Pew Hispanic Center has also updated its interactive maps and database on the USA’s Latino population. Data can be viewed by county for 1980, 1990, 2000 and 2009 and reveal the shifting patterns of residence of the Hispanic population since 1980.

Another Pew report, The Mexican-American Boom: Births Overtake Immigration shows that, since 2000, births have overtaken immigration as the main driver for the dynamic growth of the Mexican population in the USA. This is because:

  • Mexican-Americans are younger (on average) and have higher fertility than other US groups, and
  • The numbers of Mexicans migrating to the USA has fallen. Mexico’s 2010 census revealed that emigration from Mexico to the USA has dropped significantly in recent years, from an average of 480,000/year in 2000—2005 to around 145,000/year for 2005—2010.

Hispanics in the USA lag behind the rest of the population in terms of education. For example, only 9% of Mexicans in the USA aged 25 and over have at least a  Bachelor’s degree, compared with 13% of all Hispanics in the USA and over 20% for the US population as a whole. This is reflected in median earnings, where the average personal earnings for Mexicans in the USA aged 16 and over was $20,000 in 2009, compared to $28.900 for the US population as a whole.

A Presidential Advisory Commission has been formed to look at ways to improve the academic achievement of Hispanics, the largest and fastest-growing minority in the public education system.

The growing number of Hispanics in the USA has meant that Hispanics are now looking to have a greater say in politics. This has led to the formation of the Tequila Party, a nonpartisan movement launched on 5 May (Cinco de Mayo) 2011. Their first political rally, a call to “get out and vote”, accompanied by mariachis, was held in Tucson, Arizona.

  One Response to “Updated facts and figures for the Mexican diaspora in the USA”

  1. The “Pew Hispanic Center” is a branch of the Pew Research Center. The Pew Research Center is a nonprofit organization that makes its money by making itself relevant–thus, all its polls. As is the nature of all polls, the result of its “polls” are skewed and depend heavily on how it defines the group that it polls, the kind of questions asked, and the way in which the pollster ask a question. Nothing about polls is scientific.

    A premise in this article is: If the group is politically labeled “Hispanic,” then the group should be treated as if everyone in the group can easily be painted with a single brush.

    Any member of any non profit organization that acts as a self appointed elected official is overstepping his or her mandate. People in the United States politically labeled Hispanic and Latino are not idiots, they know there is no such thing as one general community that includes everyone who descends from or comes from all the Latin American countries. Indeed, any statistics resulting from the grouping of everyone who has immigrated from the different countries of Latin America along with anyone who may have some Latin American heritage are simply number-fudged statistics. To be sure, if any statistics include illegal immigrants those statistics by definition are cooked and clearly lead to erroneous conclusions because the two populations — illegal and legal — encounter very different issues.

    There is a saying…if you want to start a successful money-making business CREATE A NEED and fill it. What would happen to these non profits’ self-appointed mandates if there were no illegal immigrants, and all statistics that purport to be about (legal) Latin American immigrants and Americans of Latin American heritage were treated the same as all statistics gathered about other immigrant groups and American nationals–that is to say, the Hispanic/Latino statistics would be broken down by race?

    As long as non profit organizations create a NEEDY “community” then their officers have secured the longevity of a six figure income. In all my years, I have witness the explosion of non profit Hispanic/Latino organizations that don’t seem to solve problems for Latin Americans in this country but rather seem to create a never-ending growing proliferation of NEEDS that they attributed to this artificial community. Indeed, these organizations are generating more stereotyping than any common ordinary American bigot; the opposite of the very protection “strict scrutiny” was suppose to guarantee.

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