‘The World State’ : Californians Come From Just About Everywhere, Census Shows

Americans used to brag “aren’t we wonderful, we come from everywhere,” says demographer and author Ben J. Wattenberg. But since the 1960s, that has not been true.

“The vast majority of Americans were descendants of European immigrants and (enslaved) Africans, with a relatively small number from Asia and the Hispanic world,” says Wattenberg, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. Today, as the title of his latest book says, “We are ‘The First Universal Nation.’ ”

Population change has been swiftest in California, which has been called “The World State” and “The New Ellis Island” because virtually every racial and ethnic group is represented here. Growth during the last decade--an increase of 6 million--was unprecedented. By 2000, the state’s population--now less than 30 million--is expected to reach 35 million, burgeoning to 40 million by 2010, then slowing down significantly.

The nation’s predicted mid-21st-Century majority has already arrived in Los Angeles. Here, minority is a meaningless term: Latinos, blacks and Asian Americans make up about 59% of the population, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates.

* In the Los Angeles-Orange County metropolitan area, Anglos compose 52% of the population.

* In Los Angeles County schools, Latinos, Asians, blacks, American Indians and Pacific Islanders account for 74% of the student population.

* The non-Anglo school population in Orange County is 45%.

By contrast, Muncie, Ind., which typified middle America for several generations of sociologists, has a Anglo population of 88%, while blacks account for 10%, Latinos 1% and “others” about 1%. The racial and ethnic mix of that city’s school population is virtually the same. While Muncie’s demographic profile does not reflect the nation’s, neither does that of Los Angeles. The estimated population of the United States is 250 million; 77% are Anglo, 12% African American, 8% Latino and 3% others.

The Los Angeles area is an anomaly within an anomaly because of immigration. The 1990 census is expected to count 6 million foreign-born residents.

“Nearly one in two new residents is a recent immigrant and this trend will continue adding more than 250,000 people to California’s population each year,” according to a demographic report from the Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy.

Statewide, the 1990 census is expected to show that “ethnic minorities” account for 12.5 million residents--more than 40% of the population. “By 2000, the Hispanic, Asian and black population will grow to 17.1 million people, almost 50% of the state’s population,” the report says.