In long-predicted shift, California Latinos outnumber whites – AP News 7/8

A woman walks with children to the MacArthur Park Primary Center School in Los Angeles.

The official confirmation had to wait until new population figures were released by the Census Bureau this summer.

The demographers agreed: at some point in 2014, Latinos would pass whites as the largest ethnic group in California. But the latest figures are the first to confirm the balance has changed definitively. Neither, it seems, are Asians.

Census population estimates released late last month showed that as of July 1, 2014, the state was home to roughly 14.99 million Hispanic residents compared to 14.92 million non-Hispanic white residents. Together, the two groups make up almost 80 percent of the state’s population.

Robert Suro of the University of Southern California, speaking on NPR, noted that the white population is shrinking nationally and in California.

As that happened, California’s Hispanic population has grown more rooted and settled.

Third state in the USA to have a non-White majority.

In a demographic development that will have major political ramifications, people of Hispanic origin now outnumber whites in California.

Yet another Census report from March of this year predicted that by 2044 more than half of the population in the United States would be part of a “minority” group.

The trend is occurring alongside nationwide growth in the Hispanic population, which increased to about 17 percent of the total as of last July from around 12.5 percent in 2000, according to US Census figures. Republicans made up 22 percent of Asian-American registered voters.