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- NATION, Page 43American NotesPOPULATIONHispanics on The Rise
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- As census takers prepare for the 1990 population count, which
- could sharply shift the relative clout of states in the House of
- Representatives and force the redistribution of countless federal
- aid programs, one trend is already evident: as a group, Hispanics
- have grown five times as fast as the rest of the U.S. population
- since 1980. Their number has leaped 39% and is now 20.1 million,
- 8.2% of the U.S. total. The figures, released last week, came from
- a Census Bureau survey conducted in March, which made no attempt
- to distinguish between legal and illegal residents.
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- The influx of Hispanics, mostly from Mexico, is concentrated
- in California (which has 34%), Texas (21%), New York (10%) and
- Florida (8%). Besides holding a potentially pivotal vote in close
- elections in those states, Hispanics are disproportionately young
- and thus constitute a large share of students in many school
- systems. At this rate, Hispanics could overtake blacks (30 million)
- as the largest U.S. minority by 2015.
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