Last Updated: August 13, 1999
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Demographics
The ‘browning’ of America is no longer speculation:
It is happening in the West and South; but it is uneven in the country,
even in single states; what do the numbers say?
The United States is splitting apart north and south again — 134 years
after the end of the Civil War.
Wide swaths of the Northeast, Midwest and Rocky Mountain states are
becoming whiter as an arc of states from North Carolina to California become
“browner” or increasingly minority. Minority populations are growing in
communities along the East, West and Gulf coasts.
That’s the message from well-known demographics experts Harold “Bud”
Hodgkinson, director of the Center for Demographic Policy, Institute for
Educational Leadership in Alexandria, Va., who spoke at ASNE’s April convention,
and Hazel Reinhardt, a consultant based in Minneapolis who specializes
in demographics, market analysis and strategic direction. Some interesting
trends:
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Sometime this year, white people in Santa Clara County, California, the
heart of Silicon Valley, will find themselves a minority. Hispanics, Asians
and blacks will represent 51 percent of the population.
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California will become the first “majority-minority” state in 2000. Texas
will reach this status about 2010.
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By 2050 — whites — those with no Hispanic heritage, will become a minority
in the United States for the first time in history.
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43 percent of all Asian Americans live in three metropolitan areas: Los
Angeles, New York City and San Francisco.
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Hispanics will become the largest minority in the United States in 2010.
What is fueling these amazing changes? Immigration and the aging of the
white population.
The immigrants have changed
Just look at the immigration figures. Between 1951 and 1960, more than
half of U.S. immigrants came from Europe, compared with 24.6 percent from
Latin America and 6.1 percent from Asia. Those numbers have changed dramatically.
Now, Latin American immigrants lead the pack with 39 percent, Asians have
grown to a whopping 36.2 percent, while Europeans have fallen to 18.2 percent
of U.S. immigrants. (See chart on facing page.)
Immigrants, for example, are the only reason New York state has even
a paltry one percent growth. Dominicans have been particularly important
in New York City’s changes, for example.
William H. Frey, a demographer at the Population Studies Center at the
University of Michigan, is blunt in his assessment: “The ongoing growth
in the numbers of Hispanics and Asians in large gateway metros (such as
New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco), and the domestic migration of
blacks to the South and whites to the South and West, indicate that most
communities lack true racial and ethnic diversity.”
Frey wrote this in an article called “The Diversity Myth,” published
in the June 1998 issue of American Demographics magazine.
Of 3,142 U.S. counties, well over half — 1,711 — are at least 90 percent
white, according to Frey. That means the nation has few real “melting pot”
communities. In 1996, whites were a minority in 226 counties (about 7 percent).
Most minorities — 95 percent of Asians, 91 percent of Hispanics and
85 percent of blacks — lived near large cities.
Furthermore, certain regions of the United States — the West and South
particularly — had large percentages of certain minority populations. (See
map on facing page.)
New opportunities seen
Latino teen-agers are of emerging interest to marketers. American Demographics
reports that in the last six months two magazines have launched:
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Latingirl, a fashion and beauty publication for teen-age girls.
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SuperOnda, which mean SuperWave, a career magazine for young Hispanic adults.
Latina was the first magazine aimed at this growing teen audience and its
pocketbooks.
Why? Hispanic teen-agers now make up 13.6 percent of all teens —
4.3 million, according to American Demographics. In six years, Latino teens
will comprise the largest minority teen group in the country.
“In addition, the number of Hispanic teens will grow at more than three
times the rate of the general teen population within the next six years,”
according to American Demographics. Overall, the teen population will grow
7.3 percent, while the number of Hispanic teens will grow a whopping 25.8
percent.
Hispanic teens are also big spenders, reports American Demographics.
“They fork out an average of $375 a month, 7.8 percent more than the average
teen does,” according to Teenage Research Unlimited.
Newspaper reactions
What are newspapers doing about these mega-population shifts?
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Three years ago the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News launched Nuevo Mundo,
a weekly Spanish-language newspaper. This year it will turn a profit, publisher
Jay Harris, told the ASNE convention in April. Advertisers include Macy’s,
J.C. Penney, Nordstrom, Sears and American Airlines.
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In January, the Mercury News launched Viet Mercury, a weekly aimed at the
area’s mushrooming Vietnamese population. Twelve weeks after launch, distribution
was 30 percent higher than expected, with annual revenues expected in the
seven-figures, Harris said.
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Newsday has launched Hoy for its growing Hispanic market.
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The San Francisco Examiner launched the New City project to carefully track
the direct and indirect impacts of the city’s changing demographics.
“These new communities will have some primary source of information
in the future. The question is whether it will be us, or now-unknown competitors
who fill the clear need we failed to address,” Harris said.
“They are our future.”
Bowman is diversity director of ASNE.
