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Upfront
The Changing of the Guard

Ruben Navarrette, Jr.

FORMER U.S. HOUSING SECRETARY HENRY CISNEROS tells this funny story about a speech he gave in the Midwest years ago, and the scare he gave a member of the audience.

Cisneros was excitedly talking about how Hispanics were going to represent a greater percentage of the U.S. population in the years to come, and how they were going to impact everything from music to food to culture to politics—and change America in the process.
Then, during the Q & A session, a dear lady stands up and asks exasperatingly: “But can’t anyone do anything?” Having frightened the poor woman half to death, Cisneros wanted to be comforting, but the best he could do was answer her question truthfully with: “No ma’am, not really.” What can I say? Henry was ahead of his time.

Have you ever wondered why immigration has become such a contentious issue? Or why the uni-culturalists are determined to put an end to bilingual education, bilingual ballots,bilingual anything? Or why some people are so interested in whom Hispanics are going to vote for, or what products they buy? Or why the socio-political atmosphere toward Hispanics has turned so ugly and so poisonous? It’s the demographics, baby.
We’re witnessing the changing of the guard. The United States is going from a country in which whites are the majority to one in which they’ll be the minority. The new majority will be made up of non-whites—Asian Americans, African Americans, Native Americans and, most of all, Hispanics.

This was supposed to happen in 2050, but the Demographic Express is ahead of schedule. Now it looks like the bewitching hour will occur sometime in 2042, or eight years earlier than expected. Who knows? In 10 years, demographers may say that the change is coming in 2040 or 2035. For now, it’s 2042 and, for many Americans, that’s bloody soon enough.

The Census Bureau reported in August that by 2050 minorities will represent 54 percent of the U.S. population, and that Hispanics will drive most of the growth. Between now and 2050, the Hispanic population in the United States is expected to triple, going from 46.7 million to 132.8 million. At that point, one in four Americans will be Hispanic. And that’s all across the country. So you can imagine just how heavily Hispanic cities like Phoenix, Denver, Chicago, Miami, Dallas, New York and Los Angeles will be.

Part of the reason is immigration, both legal and illegal. But there is also the matter of birthrates. They are higher for minority groups than for whites. According to another batch of Census fi gures released in August, white women in the United States now have an average of 1.8 children. Meanwhile, Hispanics have an average of 2.3 kids.
We’re becoming a Hispanic nation. Immigration restrictionists know it. Minutemen vigilantes know it. Cable fearmonger Lou Dobbs knows it.The good news is that a better class of people know it too. Like Barack Obama. The Democratic presidential nominee caught fl ak when he told supporters at a rally in Powder Springs, Georgia: “You need to make sure your child can speak Spanish.”

From the panicked reaction, you would have thought that Obama had agreed to hand the Southwest back to Mexico and toss in a case of good tequila.
Everyone needs to chill out—the nativists, Lou Dobbs, the lady who freaked out over Cisneros speech. Everyone. Yes, the face of America is changing. What else is new? The very concept of America is fl uid. It’s always transforming itself from one thing to another. You want uniformity? Move to Finland.

It’s all going to work out. Thanks to a tradition of welcoming immigrants, this is the most diverse nation on Earth. It’s also the strongest, most prosperous, most envied and most magnifi cent nation on Earth. Someday, maybe around 2050, people are going to fi gure out that those things are connected. And maybe they’ll breathe easier


Ruben Navarrette, Jr. is a regular columnist for Hispanic Magazine, an editorial board member of the San Diego Union-Tribune, a nationally syndicated columnist with the Washington Post Writers Group, a weekly commentator at CNN.COM and the author of A Darker Shade of Crimson: Odyssey of a Harvard Chicano (Bantam). Find out more at www.rubennavarrette.com