Latino children for the first time made up a majority of California's under-18 population in 2010, as Hispanics grew to 37.6% of residents in the nation's most populous state.Yeah. Tell me about it. Now if we could just get a good lot of these folks speaking English.
A new U.S. Census report showed the state's non-Hispanic white population fell 5.4% over the past decade, a continuing trend offset by a 27.8% surge in Hispanics and 30.9% increase in non-Hispanic Asians.
Though in decline, white Californians remained the state's largest demographic group at 40.1%. But demographers said Hispanics were poised to take the lead.
Underlying the demographic shifts, California grew at its slowest pace in the past decade in more than a century. The population rose 10% to 37.3 million, an increase in line with the national average.
As in California, Hispanics are gaining ground in many other states, such as North Carolina, as whites are on the verge of becoming a minority among all newborn children in the U.S.
The report released Tuesday is the latest to indicate major shifts in where Americans live. Census figures released earlier this year showed that Chicago's population fell to its lowest level in 90 years.
Other census figures showed that blacks migrated to the faster-growing South from cities in the Northeast and Midwest in the greatest numbers in decades. That boosted North Carolina, whose population rose 18.5% in the decade—compared to the nationwide rate of 9.7%.
In a first, California failed to gain a congressional seat in the latest census count. Los Angeles experienced its lowest numeric increase since the 1890-1900 Census, growing 2.6% to 3.8 million. The state's slower growth reflected tough economic times but also an exodus of Californians to less crowded Western states
"The big story for California is it's now becoming an anchor rather than a magnet in the West," said William Frey, demographer and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. "It is still able to disperse its population and culture throughout the West."
Some of the demographic changes could reshape politics in the Golden State.
In the conservative bastion of Orange County, for example, minorities for the first time passed whites to become the majority of the population, according to the census figures. Because many minorities are Democrats, political observers say that trend could dilute the historic strength of the Republican Party there over time.
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