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Hispanic Population Increases in the United States
by Melanie King
Chart taken from United States Census Bureau website.
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Since 1990, the Hispanic population has increased throughout the United States by more than 50 percent, with the largest increase in the south. Hispanics make up 13% of the total United States population, this year surpassing blacks as the largest U.S. minority group.
North Carolina had a 395% increase in Hispanics during the 1990s, the largest increase in the country according to the 2000 census. Since then the state's Hispanic population has continued to increase by 16%, second only to Georgia at 16.8%.
Greg Clemmons, associate professor of Spanish at Mars Hill College, notes that economic conditions in Mexico, Central, and South America continue to deteriorate. With jobs scarce and low paying at home, citizens of those countries come to the United States in search of work, Clemmons said.
Tim Pluta, who also teaches Spanish at the college and has lived for extended periods of time in Mexico and other Latin American countries, explains what has happened under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), established in 1994. American and other companies looking for cheap labor were allowed to move into areas like Mexico, Central, and South America, he says. Offering citizens more money than they could make in local jobs, these companies seemed to help at first. But the competition destroyed many local businesses. Then, when places like China and India offered even cheaper labor, many of the companies moved out of Mexico, Central, and South America, leaving the locals with no jobs and their former jobs gone.
With deteriorating economic conditions, Hispanic immigration to the United States increased, especially in the Southeastern United States. Pluta gives a situation which helps to clarify the reasoning of many Hispanic immigrants. "For us it would be like -- let's say a college student is making $6.25 an hour in a job and has to work that job and another job just to pay for rent and minimum food. Let's also say that Canada is offering $39 an hour for the same job. Would that student think about crossing the border to Canada? Let's say $60 an hour. The student can earn ten times as much. Would they cross the border for $60 an hour?"
For Hispanics coming to the United States, "It comes to the point where they can earn [enough] money to send to their family, and their family can live a decent lifestyle. Most of the Hispanic immigrants that do that here…have five, ten, fifteen people living together in a small house. They pool their money so they only have to pay a little bit a month, and the rest gets sent home to their families."
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