Census confirms big picture changing

What will you be doing in 2050? I expect that I will have hit the canvas before then. After all, that's two full generations away. Nonetheless, the Census Bureau is thinking ahead. It has projected how many of us will be around that year.

The nation's population, estimated in a report released in mid-August, will grow to some big numbers. For instance, today's population of 305 million will increase to 400 million in 2039 and to 439 million by 2050. The only news here is that the change will happen eight years sooner than researchers had previously expected.

Sometime around 2042, a symbolic population shift will take place. By then, blacks, nearing 15 percent, and Asians, at about 9 percent, will together with Hispanics form the national majority. Come 2050, nearly three out of every 10 U.S. residents -- 30 percent -- will be Hispanic, the demographers tell us.

Hispanic population growth is the consistent variable in the Census projection. Non-Hispanic white families give birth to 1.8 children, not enough to sustain our present population, while Hispanics produce 2.3 children. Immigration is a lesser factor in keeping the nation's population from shrinking.

Hispanics will number more than 100 million sometime between 2035 and 2040 and will have tripled to 133 million in 2050, contributing the most to a pending tipping point.

When it occurs, will anybody notice? Probably not. And it's not too smart to use today's categories and ethnic meanings tomorrow.

First, under two oxymoron scenarios either you will live in a "majority-minority" or "minority-majority" community. Unless you are a bean counter, I have trouble figuring out what difference that makes. For those who have grown accustomed to present race-ethnic categories for differentiation, another scenario has it that every white household will have a family of color next door. But with intermarriage being what it is--well you might be living next door to people like you.

Intermarriage between Latinos and other ethnic groups is making this part of the population less distinguishable. A 2003 Pew Hispanic Center study has shown that while first-generation immigrant Latinos tend to marry within their ethnic group (only eight percent did so outside the group), 32 percent of the second generation and 57 percent of the third-plus generations intermarry.

Already a multiracial group, Hispanics may in fact serve as a role model for the national transformation that leads up to 2042.

The practical and demographic remedy to many race and ethnic-related issues seems to be cuddling. As a consequence the racists and separatists in our population will probably be the ones running away from a hug.

Because cultural assets don't automatically carry over to succeeding generations, it's worth remembering Massey Villarreal's caution. He is the former chairman of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce who pointed out that third-generation Hispanics "can no longer speak the language," adding with emphasis, "For us to compete in a global economy, our kids need to be bilingual." That is one culture asset we still haven't learned how to carry over. Others include the histories, stories, traditions and sense of human value we contribute to the national experience that forms part of our social capital. This aspect too has remained undervalued because it takes work to unearth and bring it to the conscious level. But it is what distinguishes the United States from many other nations.

Hispanics have a responsibility to teach fellow citizens now and those of generations to come about the missing chapters of the nation's story. People without a history otherwise get one assigned to them, disorienting both themselves and the society around them.

We know about that already from the experience of some very confused people who are trying to turn back the clock, presenting our country as a lone outpost on the frontier. A fact-check about the error would simply consult a good human geography reference about the people with whom we share the American continent.

Poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti said it very nicely: "Political borders still exist. Human borders don't."

The change is worth waiting for. Maybe there's no real hurry to hang up my gloves. The year 2042 isn't really that far off.

(Josi de la Isla writes a weekly commentary for Hispanic Link News Service. E-mail joseisla3(at)yahoo.com.)

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)