Color...minorities?

DocDiggs · 03-26-2006, 16:38

Area Soon to Be Mostly Minority

Shift in 4-8 Years Will Reshape Politics, Priorities, Experts Say

By D'Vera Cohn
Washington Post Staff Writer

The minority population in the Washington region will become the majority in well under a decade, a benchmark of the racial and ethnic change that is reconfiguring the area's political, economic and social identity.

Among residents younger than 40, minorities already outnumber whites, and experts say the trends that have driven up those numbers are certain to continue.

When it hits the majority-minority threshold, the Washington region will join a handful of the nation's largest metropolitan areas, among them Miami, Houston, Los Angeles and San Francisco. The New York City region will soon be among them.

Washington will cross the threshold in four to eight years, according to various forecasts.

The continuing demographic shift will inevitably affect everything from voting patterns to the products on grocery store shelves. History shows that as groups mix, more people marry across racial and ethnic lines.

Some experts say this will cause racial divisions to fade. Others predict that the changing demographics will ignite turf battles and wonder whether institutions built to serve mainly white populations will be able to adapt.

Demographers say the change is sure to happen because it is driven by long-running, even accelerating, trends. The area's racial and ethnic minorities, who make up 47 percent of the population, are more likely to be in their young childbearing years than whites. They have larger families, especially if they are immigrants. And although whites continue to move to this region, Asians, blacks, Hispanics and other minorities are arriving in greater numbers.

Based on current trends, Brookings Institution demographer William H. Frey predicts that the region will become majority-minority in 2010. Claritas, a market research firm, puts the date at 2011. Woods & Poole Economics Inc., which forecasts demographic and economic trends, predicts 2014. All rely heavily on Census Bureau estimates on race and ethnicity for the metropolitan area defined by the federal government, which stretches from West Virginia to Southern Maryland.

In 2004, non-Hispanic whites made up just over half -- 53 percent -- of the region's population, according to the most recent census figures. Some embassy officials and community groups say that figure could be even lower because census estimates substantially undercount minorities.

For example, Salvadoran Ambassador Rene A. Leon estimated that 500,000 Salvadorans live in the area, while census estimates and surveys put the number at 125,000. And the Guatemalan Embassy said as many as 100,000 Guatemalans may be here, while census data suggest 40,000.

The region has experienced an explosion of immigrant entrepreneurship, more weekend culture classes for Chinese American children and a tripling since 2000 in the number of people who listen to Spanish-language radio stations.

"Schools, young adult clubs, politics and the dating scene in D.C. will be increasingly multiethnic, creating a sharp contrast with the old, white establishment and the black-dominated minority population of the past," Frey said.

There also are tensions, including policy battles over how to respond to day laborers and multigenerational immigrant families crowding into small homes.

Yet the strains have been less acute than in other areas, experts say, because so many minorities here are well-off and integrated into the middle class.

The region is home to a substantial number of affluent blacks, as well as many Asians and Hispanics with college educations and high incomes. According to Scarborough Research, 45 percent of minority households in the Washington region make at least $75,000 a year, the highest figure for any metropolitan area. Among non-Hispanic white households, 59 percent earn at least that much.

Although the changes have prompted demand for government services and a growing market for ethnic products, many believe political change will be slower.

"We only are relevant the day of the election, and then we are forgotten for the next four years," said Jorge Ribas, a Montgomery County civic leader. He hosts a weekly talk show on a Spanish radio station, and his callers tell him that "many Hispanics feel their elected officials are worth nothing."

Political representation has lagged behind demographics elsewhere, too: Minorities made up more than half of New York City's population in the 1980s, but they did not become a majority of voters until this decade. Many immigrants are not citizens, and minorities who are young and poor are less likely to vote than older, more affluent whites.

Some predict that, down the road, younger minority residents who want more spending on schools may be pitted against older white residents who demand more services for senior citizens. Others suggest that prosperity may stave off tensions.

"If Fairfax County government can continue to expand, the likelihood of conflict is minimal," George Mason University political scientist Toni-Michelle Travis said, a statement that could apply to other well-off counties. "If money is tight, then conflict will arise among the groups."

Whether or not the majority-minority change brings conflict, it is likely to result in families blended ethnically and racially.

Matt and Tinisha Weigelt, a mixed-race couple living in Alexandria, said their diverse group of friends is one of the things they enjoy about the area. Both 28, each moved here to work on Capitol Hill, where they struck up a conversation in a hallway one day. Now they are married and expecting their first child.

He said he is "just plain white," from Minnesota. She is biracial, from Tennessee. They attend a multicultural church in Sterling where he said he has learned to sway in the choir. Born only a decade after the Supreme Court legalized interracial marriage in Virginia, they said a few people still give them a second glance.

"What's he doing with her?" Matt Weigelt recalled a man in a group of black Shriners saying as the couple walked with his parents in downtown Washington. He said he laughed it off, but his mother and father were disconcerted.

"I enjoy it here," Tinisha Weigelt said. "You get looks sometimes, but it doesn't bother me. Most people are kind of mixed anyway, even if they don't know it."

Harry Pachon, president of the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute at the University of Southern California, noted that half of the grandchildren of Hispanic immigrants marry someone who is not Hispanic. Intermarriage rates also are high for some Asian groups, though lower among blacks, the area's largest minority group. As mixed couples such as the Weigelts grow in number, Pachon said, racial boundaries could blur.

"My personal perspective on that is 'white' is going to get darker over the coming decade," he said. "People will legitimately call themselves white, but they may be a shade darker, a cafe au lait sort of look."

Staff researcher David Barie contributed to this report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...402005_pf.html

Woodmonkey · 03-26-2006, 18:26

This is interesting, Doc. My grandie is multi-racial and I wonder how it will all shake out.

11th/ACR Scout · 03-26-2006, 18:37

Oh So True Doc...

In the last 15 years, in Waukegan IL...

The Hispanic community has grown from

a minority to the majority...

Fact: Blacks and whites are the minoraties...

Hispanics are the majority...

Jacklou59 · 03-26-2006, 19:11

Thats So True. Everything Is Changing The Kids Today In School Have To Take Spanish In Order To Communicate. Got To Go With The Flow

DocDiggs · 03-26-2006, 19:27

The ELCA (Lutheran) did a study about 5 years or so ago that indicated that at the current rate then, Americans of European ancestry (incld. the UK), would become a minority population by abt. 2015 as I recall. Thereabouts anyhow. The interesting thing that I have seen too, was that the projection is that gov would continue to be dominated by those of European ancestry at least well into this century.

I don't believe we need fear losing "our" language of English however, as that is the language of world trade, travel, air traffic control, etc. [Actually we speak American. English is a foreign language for most Americans! (grin)]

Woodmonkey · 03-26-2006, 21:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by DocDiggs

The ELCA (Lutheran) did a study about 5 years or so ago that indicated that at the current rate then, Americans of European ancestry (incld. the UK), would become a minority population by abt. 2015 as I recall. Thereabouts anyhow. The interesting thing that I have seen too, was that the projection is that gov would continue to be dominated by those of European ancestry at least well into this century.

I don't believe we need fear losing "our" language of English however, as that is the language of world trade, travel, air traffic control, etc. [Actually we speak American. English is a foreign language for most Americans! (grin)]

I don't know why that hasn't been called 'American' - that's what we speak. Our language has diverged (is that the correct term?) from the mother tongue.

Snowden · 03-27-2006, 09:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Woodmonkey

I don't know why that hasn't been called 'American' - that's what we speak. Our language has diverged (is that the correct term?) from the mother tongue.

I hadn't realized the many subtle differences until our English daughter-in-law lived with us for the four years. They are subtle, and the meanings the English have for some expressions and words vary enough to cause misunderstandings. Fortunately, she has lived here over 20 years now, so while we have to watch some of the expressions that mean nothing to us, to the English they can be very crude - and she hears those meanings still.