Hispanics and the Sunbelt

The Spanish-speaking population constitutes the fastest growing minority group in the United States. The annual growth rate for this group is 2.7 percent, a figure that translates into a doubling, within some 25 years, of the present Hispanic population of 15 million. The annual growth rate for blacks is 1.3 percent and for whites only 1 percent. The average age of Chicano women is 19, compared to 30 for Anglo women and 27 for black women. Thus, the average Hispanic woman has some 15-20 years of childbearing ahead of her.

These figures indeed point to a great social and political potential. In the Southwest and California, where 70 percent of the United States’ Hispanics live, large influxes of Mexican undocumented workers p...