Hispanics Extend Reach Beyond Enclaves

South Americans, Puerto Ricans and Cubans are settling among the existing U.S. population more readily than Mexicans, the nation's largest Hispanic group, a trend with implications for politics, the economy and other areas of daily life.

In another finding of a study of U.S. Hispanics to be released Wednesday, the number of Hondurans, Guatemalans and others has been growing more rapidly than Mexicans, who still make up six in 10 U.S. Hispanics, since 1990. In all, 50.5 million U.S. residents trace their origin to Spanish-speaking countries.

South Americans, including Argentines and Venezuelans, have the highest levels of education and are the least segregated from other ethnic groups in the U.S., even if they are more recent arrivals, according to the study.

Every group except Mexicans has experienced a substantial decline in residential segregation from whites since 1990, according to the most common measure of segregation, the "dissimilarity index," which measures the distribution of two groups in a neighborhood and how much one group is over- or under-represented in relation to the other...

Four decades ago, the federal government identified as "Hispanic¹" the surging mass of people with origins in Latin America and the Caribbean. They are a multiracial, multiethnic and multicultural lot: Argentines often descend from white Italians and Spaniards; Dominicans are often black. Politicians and marketers who wish to reach out to Hispanics need to be aware of the major differences among them, experts say, because they aren't a monolith."Shared language is important, but it's also important to be aware that most Mexicans are not immigrants², South Americans have relatively high education and income, and that many of the least-advantaged Hispanics are the rapidly growing number of immigrants from Central America," Mr. Logan said.South Americans, Puerto Ricans and Cubans are settling among the existing U.S. population more readily than Mexicans, the nation's largest Hispanic group, a trend with implications for politics, the economy and other areas of daily life.

In another finding of a study of U.S. Hispanics to be released Wednesday, the number of Hondurans, Guatemalans and others has been growing more rapidly than Mexicans, who still make up six in 10 U.S. Hispanics, since 1990. In all, 50.5 million U.S. residents trace their origin to Spanish-speaking countries...

Every group except Mexicans has experienced a substantial decline in residential segregation from whites since 1990, according to the most common measure of segregation, the "dissimilarity index," which measures the distribution of two groups in a neighborhood and how much one group is over- or under-represented in relation to the other...

Four decades ago, the federal government identified as "Hispanic" the surging mass of people with origins in Latin America and the Caribbean. They are a multiracial, multiethnic and multicultural lot: Argentines often descend from white Italians and Spaniards; Dominicans are often black. Politicians and marketers who wish to reach out to Hispanics need to be aware of the major differences among them, experts say, because they aren't a monolith...

There were nearly 32 million Mexicans in the U.S. in 2010, according to the census. The country also was home to four million Central Americans, triple the number in 1990, and 2.8 million South Americans, including Colombians, Ecuadorians and Brazilians, up from about a million two decades earlier...

In many cities it can be harder for Mexicans to integrate with other groups given that they are so numerous. Their relatively high residential segregation also is partly attributable to their low socioeconomic status, said Daniel Cornfield, a Vanderbilt University professor who studies immigration. The share of Mexicans who have a bachelor's degree, 7.3%, is lower than that of several other Hispanic groups, according to the census.

Non-Mexican Hispanics have integrated with whites by departing areas where they were highly concentrated...

CAIRCO Notes:

1. “Hispanic” is a bogus ethnicity concocted for political purposes by Nixon-era bureaucrats. See The Origin of the Term ‘Hispanic’ for an interview with the beaucrat who invented the term.

Note that by explaining the etymology of this artificial term, we are by no means denigrating people of Spain, Portugal, Central America, and South America, many of whom are proud of their countries and their Indian, Spanish, and Portugese lineage.

2. Regarding the assertion that "Most Mexicans are not immigrants", we would point out that aliens - foreign nationals - are allowed to visit under an appropriate visa. They can also be admitted as legal immigrants, or can sneak in as illegal aliens. Perhaps the author meant to say that most Americans of Mexican heritage are not immigrants. The distinction is important.

We would also observe that the article clearly illustrates the consequences of inordinantly high levels of legal - and illegal - immigration.