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Thu 26 Aug, 2004 08:30 pm
Whites no longer the majority in Texas
Associated Press
White non-Hispanics are no longer the majority in Texas for the first time since the 1800s, according to a Census Bureau survey released today.
The survey said whites stopped being the majority as of last year. The bureau also released statistics that showed Texas joined only Illinois and North Carolina in having a poverty rate that measurably increased while income decreased in 2002-03.
State demographer Steve Murdock said the two trends are related as economic woes have slowed white migration from other states. Most of Texas' population expansion since 2000 has come from births and international immigration, both sources of predominantly Hispanic growth.
"A variety of historical and discriminatory factors mean (Hispanics) have lower incomes," Murdock said.
Texas was dominated by Indians and a few Spanish settlers until 1821, when the new Mexican government allowed Americans to enter as long as they pledged allegiance, turned Catholic and learned Spanish.
Soon the flood of white newcomers quickly made Texas look like other U.S. frontier areas, and dictator Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna's attempt to tighten Mexican control resulted in a successful Texas revolution in 1836. By the time Texas became a state in 1845, whites dominated the landscape.
That ended some time in 2003, according to estimates from the annual population measurement known as the American Community Survey.
Estimates show Texas was 49.5 percent white in 2003, down 1.5 percentage points from 2002 but still a large plurality. Almost all the loss was made up by Hispanics, who made up about 35.3 percent of the populace.
"The future of Latinos is the future of Texas, as the population numbers show," said Luis Figueroa, legislative staff attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund.
The black population remained basically flat at around 10.8 percent. Asian-Americans now accounted for about 3 percent of Texas.
The dip of whites below the 50 percent mark was inevitable, although its occurrence in 2003 was at the early end of the predicted scale, Murdock said.
"We thought it probably would happen this year or next, so it's only a year different," Murdock said. "It does indicate that Hispanic growth is occurring more rapidly than we anticipated it would."
Murdock said Texas' continued explosion in Hispanic growth, fueled largely by international immigration that made up 36 percent of the state's growth from April 2000 to July 2003, helps explain the socio-economic numbers.
Most states did not report a significant change in income or poverty from 2001-02 to 2002-03, according to the Census Bureau. Not Texas, which had an estimated 3.8 percent decline in median household income to about $41,000 along with a 1 percent hike in the poverty rate.
The Census Bureau's definition of poverty varies by the size of the household.
There was little change in the percentage of Texans without health insurance, which was basically flat at 24.7 percent. But with nearly a quarter of its residents uninsured, Texas still easily leads the nation in that unwanted statistic.
Figueroa pointed to a recent report that immigrant teens with sterling academic records are having trouble getting into college because of a lack of citizenship.
"If you keep putting up barriers to obtaining success, a lot of times the result is going to be a cycle of no insurance and lower incomes," he said from his San Antonio office.
Not all the numbers paint such a grim socio-economic picture for Texas. The percentage of Texans at least 25 years old with a high school diploma grew slightly to 77.8 percent while those with college degrees was flat at 24.5 percent.
However, the rate of Texas adults who didn't even make it to high school also rose slightly, to 10.8 percent.
Whites are no longer majority is Saskatchewan either, but no one seems to care!
In most parts of the United States, whites have dominated everything. The politics of being the minority worries many now. Myself, I welcome diversity. It is an interesting time coming to Texas and many other states. If hispanics decide to vote in numbers proportionate to their populace, there could be a dramatic shift in the state's priorities.
I welcome diversity aswell, but I don't want to have to pay anyone elses living but my own. You would understand what I mean by that if you live where I do.
I understand what you mean.
Is that wrong for me feeling that way?
The first evidence of the unpolled Democratic Majority.
It's showing up just in time to show Bush the door. :wink:
Unfortunately, our society tends to go to extremes. One year they may do too much for the poor, next not nearly enough.
stand up for pessimism wrote:Is that wrong for me feeling that way?
I am a bit confused about your position here, especially given the quotes you chose for your tags. I happen to come from prairie stock myself, Saskatchewan and Alberta, and I am quite familiar with the rhetoric that accompanies such an upbringing. You are still young, there is time to mend your ways!
:wink:
True, i'm just gonna keep my mouth shut for now! Have you ever lived in northern Sask., cause that's where I'm from and well, that pretty much explains itself!
Well, now we know why they were in such a hurry to gerrymander the state. Guess they saw it coming...
You think latinos are gonna vote democrat? Hardly. A bunch of hard working catholics are going to vote for a pro-abortion freeloader Kerry? I doubt it.
Besides, who let them scamper across the border?
On a side note, good luck to all the legally employed Texans who will have to pay the medical bills for your new arrivals.
THe greater percentage of Latin American voters in Texas has long voted Democrat. Put whatever spin on it you like, that's the fact.
edgarblythe wrote:THe greater percentage of Latin American voters in Texas has long voted Democrat. Put whatever spin on it you like, that's the fact.
But only 34.9% were registered in 2000 and over 70% didn't bother to vote.
True. But that didn't benefit the Republicans in any way.
True. I just think it's sad.
That's sad, too.
Wait...did you mean beautiful that over 70% stayed home?
Beautiful that they don't vote Republican.
edgarblythe wrote:True. But that didn't benefit the Republicans in any way.
Yeah it does. If they vote in majority Democratic when they vote, but they dont actually vote much, that works in favour of the Republicans, obviously.
And any kind of mass alienation from the political system, such as expressed in mass voting abstinence, is sad to me.