Hispanic Population Growth

Historical Background

During the past four decades, the Hispanic population has accounted for 36% of the 100 million people added to the population of the United States. This is the highest increase of any racial or ethnic group during this period. The rise of this unique linguistic community parallels, in great part, the rise of bilingual education in the country, along with strong demands for civil rights protection in education and other fields. Hispanic demographics deserve attention to understand how bilingual education and the American Hispanic community emerged and developed during the last quarter of the 20th century.

Major factors for expansion of the Hispanic population are immigration from Mexico and Latin America, and the high fertility rates of Latinas as reported by the Pew Hispanic Center in 2006. Before 1960, immigration by Hispanics (particularly from Mexico), to the United States was minuscule by today's standards. Manuel reported that in the decades since 1861, immigration from Mexico was as shown in Table 1.

The Hispanic population is the oldest White and mestizo population to have settled in the American Southwest. The earliest Latinos came primarily from Spain through Mexico and settled in Santa Fe, New Mexico, as early as 1609—fully 11 years before the founding of Plymouth Colony in 1620. By 1680, there were more than 2,500 Spanish-speaking settlers in New Mexico alone, as John Burma explains. Herschel Manuel reports that there were 23,000 Spanish-speaking people in the southwestern United States by 1790. These numbers remind us that the English- and German-speaking colonists of the East Coast were not alone in seeking a foothold in what is now the United States.

Not long after the 13 colonies gained their independence, English speakers began moving west into what was then Mexican land. Americans were primarily coming into central Texas. Initially anxious to see this territory settled, Mexico had invited English-speaking settlers to be a part of Mexico provided they learned Spanish and became Catholic. Texas was at the heart of the U.S.-Mexican disputes over land. As a way to justify their presence there, the U.S. government under President James Polk promoted the idea of a manifest destiny that gave the United States its conception of reaching from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

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