Hispanics/Latinos Demographics

As of July 1, 2007, Hispanics accounted for 15.1% of the national population, or around 45.4 million people. The Hispanic growth rate over the April 1, 2000 to July 1, 2007 period was

Hispanic Population by state (2006)^[25]

State	Population	% of state population
New Mexico	860,687	44.0
California	13,074,155	35.9
Texas	8,385,118	35.7
Arizona	1,803,377	29.2
Nevada	610,051	24.4
Florida	3,642,989	20.1
Colorado	934,410	19.7
New York	3,139,590	16.3
New Jersey	1,364,699	15.6
Illinois	1,888,439	14.7

28.7% — about four times the rate of the nation's total population (at 7.2%).^[26] The growth rate from July 1, 2005 to July 1, 2006 alone was 3.4%^[27] — about three and a half times the rate of the nation's total population (at 1.0%).^[26] The projected Hispanic population of the United

States for July 1, 2050 is 102.6 million people, or 24.4% of the nation’s total projected population on that date.^[28]

Of the nation's total Hispanic or Latino population, 49% (21.5 million) lives in California or Texas. Not counting Puerto Rico — which is a Commonwealth of the United States — New Mexico is the state with the highest ratio of Hispanics, where 44.7% is of Hispanic origin. Next are California and Texas, with 35.9% and 35.6%, respectively.^[29]

Density of Hispanic or Latino residents (2000 Census data)

Percentage of Hispanic or Latino residents by county (2000 Census data)

The overwhelming majority of Mexican Americans are concentrated in the Southwest, primarily in California, Texas, Arizona, Nevada, and New Mexico. The majority of the Hispanic population in the Southeast, concentrated in Florida, are of Cuban origin. The Hispanic population in the Northeast, concentrated in New York, New Jersey, and Eastern Pennsylvania, is composed mostly of Puerto Ricans; however, the Dominican population has risen considerably since the mid-1990s. The remainder of Hispanics and Latinos, composed of various Central American and South American origins, may be found throughout the country, though South Americans tend to concentrate on the East Coast and Central Americans on the West Coast.

The Hispanic population of Los Angeles County, California, numbering 4.7 million, is the largest of any county in the nation,^[30] comprising 47 percent of the county's ten million residents.^[31]

As of 2000, the ten most populous places with Hispanic majorities were East Los Angeles (97% Hispanic), Laredo, Texas (94%), Brownsville, Texas (91%) Hialeah, Florida (90%), McAllen, Texas (80%), El Paso, Texas (77%), Santa Ana, California (76%), El Monte, California (72%) Oxnard, California (66%), and Miami (66%).^[32]

Population by national origin (2007)
(self-identified ethnicity, rather than birthplace)^[33]

Hispanic Group	Population	%
Mexican	29,189,334	64.3
Puerto Rican	4,114,701	9.1
Cuban	1,608,835	3.5
Salvadoran	1,473,482	3.2
Dominican	1,198,849	2.6
Guatemalan	859,815	1.9
Colombian	797,195	1.8
Honduran	527,154	1.2
Ecuadorian	523,108	1.2
Peruvian	470,519	1.0
Spanish	353,008	0.8
Nicaraguan	306,438	0.7
Argentine	194,511	0.4
Venezuelan	174,976	0.4
Panamanian	138,203	0.3
Costa Rican	115,960	0.3
Chilean	111,461	0.2
Bolivian	82,434	0.2
Uruguayan	48,234	0.1
Paraguayan	20,432	0.04
Other Central American	111,513	0.2
Other South American	77,898	0.2
All other	2,880,536	6.3
Total	45,378,596	100

Some 64% of the nation's Hispanic population are of Mexican origin (see table). Another 9% are of Puerto Rican origin, with about 3% each of Cuban, Salvadoran and Dominican origins. The remainder are of other Central American or South American origin, or of origin directly from Spain. About 7% are of unspecified national origins. It should be noted that these figures pertain to ethnic self-identification, since the same dataset (abstracted from the 2007 American Community Survey) indicates that 60.2% of all Hispanic and Latino Americans were born in the United States.^[34]

There are few recent immigrants directly from Spain. In the 2000 Census, 299,948 Americans, of whom 83% were native-born,^[35] specifically reported their ancestry as Spaniard.^[36][37]

In northern New Mexico and southern Colorado live peoples who trace their ancestry to Spanish settlers of the late 16th century through the 17th century. People from this background often self-identify as "Hispano", "Spanish", or "Hispanic". Many of these settlers also intermarried with local Amerindians, creating a mestizo population.^[38] Likewise, southern Louisiana is home to communities of people of Canary Islands descent, known as Isleños, in addition to other people of Spanish ancestry.

Hispanics are almost uniformly Christian, with Catholicism the majority confession and an increasing Protestant community.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hispanic_and_Latino_Americans

Hispanic and Latino Americans

Hispanics and Latinos constitute 15.4% of the total United States population, or 46.89 million people

César Chávez • Raquel Welch • David Farragut
Sonia Sotomayor • Franklin Chang-Diaz • Romana Acosta Bañuelos
Alex Rodriguez • Hilda Solis • Isabel Allende
John Leguizamo • Juan Bandini • Gloria Estefan

Hispanic and Latino Americans are Americans of origins in Hispanic countries of Latin America or in Spain - "Mexican," "Puerto Rican," or "Cuban" - as well as those who indicate that they are "other Spanish, Hispanic, or Latino." Origin can be viewed as the heritage, nationality group, lineage, or country of birth of the person or the person's parents or ancestors before their arrival in the United States. People who identify their origin as Spanish, Hispanic, or Latino may be of any race.

Hispanics and Latinos constitute 15.4% of the total United States population, or 46.89 million people,[2] forming the second largest ethnic group, after non-Hispanic White Americans (which is also composed of dozens of sub-groups).[3] Again, Hispanic and Latino Americans are the largest ethnic minority in the United States; Black Americans, in turn, are the largest racial minority, after White Americans in general (non-Hispanic and Hispanic).[4] Mexican Americans, Cuban Americans, Colombian Americans, Dominican Americans, Puerto Rican Americans, Spanish Americans, and Salvadoran Americans are some of the Hispanic and Latino American sub-groups.

People of Hispanic or Latino heritage have lived continuously[5][6][7][8] in the territory of the present-day United States since the 1565 founding of St. Augustine, Florida by the Spanish, the longest among European American ethnic groups and second-longest of all U.S. ethnic groups, after American Indians. Hispanics have also lived continuously in the Southwest since near the end of the 16th century, with settlements in New Mexico that began in 1598, and which were transferred to the area of El Paso, Texas in 1680.[9] Spanish settlement of New Mexico resumed in 1692, and new ones were established in Arizona and California in the 18th century.[10][11] The Hispanic presence can even be said to date from half a century earlier than St. Augustine, if San Juan, Puerto Rico is considered to be the oldest Spanish settlement, and the oldest city, in the U.S.[12]

For the U.S. government and others, Hispanic or Latino identity is voluntary, as in the United States Census, and in some market research.[13]

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hispanic_and_Latino_Americans

History of Hispanic and Latino Americans

"The Latino and/or Hispanic presence in the United States is the second longest, after the Native American."

The history of Latinos and Hispanics in the United States is wide-ranging, spanning more than four hundred years and varying from region to region within the United States. The Latino and/or Hispanic presence in the United States is the second longest, after the Native American. Contemporaneously with their explorations and conquests elsewhere in America, most famously those of Hernán Cortés in Mexico and Francisco Pizarro in Peru, Spaniards pioneered the present-day United States, too. Hispanics (whether criollo or mestizo) became the first American citizens in the newly acquired Southwest territory after the Mexican-American War, and remained a majority in several states until the 20th century.

The first confirmed landing in the continental US was by a Spaniard, Juan Ponce de León, who landed in 1513 at a lush shore he christened La Florida. Within three decades of Ponce de León's landing, the Spanish became the first Europeans to reach the Appalachian Mountains, the Mississippi River, the Grand Canyon and the Great Plains. Spanish ships sailed along the East Coast, penetrating to present-day Bangor, Maine, and up the Pacific Coast as far as Oregon.

From 1528 to 1536, four castaways from a Spanish expedition, including a "black" Moor, journeyed all the way from Florida to the Gulf of California, 267 years before Lewis and Clark embarked on their much more renowned and far less arduous trek.

In 1540 Hernando de Soto undertook an extensive exploration of the present US and in the same year Francisco Vázquez de Coronado led 2,000 Spaniards and Mexican Indians across today's Arizona-Mexico border. Coronado travelled as far as central Kansas, close to the exact geographic center of what is now the continental United States. Other Spanish explorers of the US make up a long list that includes among others, Lucas Vásquez de Ayllón, Pánfilo de Narváez, Sebastián Vizcaíno, Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, Gaspar de Portolà, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Tristán de Luna y Arellano and Juan de Oñate. In all, Spaniards probed half of today's lower 48 states before the first English colonization attempt (Roanoke Island, 1585).[citation needed]

The Spanish didn't just explore, they settled, creating the first permanent European settlement in the continental United States, at St. Augustine, Florida in 1565. Santa Fe, New Mexico also predates Jamestown, Virginia (of Pocahontas fame, founded in 1607) and Plymouth Colony (of Mayflower, Pilgrims and Thanksgiving fame). Later came Spanish settlements in San Antonio, Tucson, San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco, to name just a few. The Spanish even established a Jesuit mission in Virginia's Chesapeake Bay 37 years before the founding of Jamestown.

Two iconic American stories have Spanish antecedents, too. Almost 80 years before John Smith's alleged rescue by Pocahontas, a man by the name of Juan Ortiz told of his similar rescue from execution by an Indian girl. Spaniards also held a thanksgiving, 56 years before the Pilgrims, when they feasted near St. Augustine with Florida Indians, probably on stewed pork and garbanzo beans.

As late as 1783, at the end of the American Revolutionary War, Spain held claim to roughly half of today's continental United States. In the Treaty of Paris France ceded Louisiana (New France) to Spain from 1763 until it was returned in 1800 by the Treaty of San Ildefonso. In 1775, Spanish ships reached Alaska.[1] From 1819 to 1848, the United States and its army increased the nation's area by roughly a third at Spanish and Mexican expense, gaining among others three of today's four most populous states: California, Texas and Florida.

The national amnesia in the US about the historic presence of Hispanics and Latinos is not new. Until well into the 20th century these facts were barely mentioned in U.S. history books. The earliest European history of what is now the United States was Spanish, not English.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Hispanic_and_Latino_Americans

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