Census Illustrates Diversity From Sea to Shining Sea

Nearly one in every three Americans is a member of a minority group, reflecting a massive surge in immigration during the 1990s, the Census Bureau reported Monday.

“The change in diversity will be our big story,” said John Long, chief of the Census Bureau population division, as his agency announced its overview of race and ethnicity--a report highlighted by a surge in the nation’s Asian population.

Census Bureau figures show the total population of Asians jumped to a range of 10.5 million to 12.8 million, a dramatic rise from 7.3 million a decade ago. Figures on race and ethnicity from the 2000 census are reported as ranges because this census for the first time allowed people to report themselves as belonging to more than one group.

The census is painting a statistical portrait of a nation that is still majority white but increasingly diverse. The nation’s total population is roughly 70% non-Latino white, down from 76% in 1990.

Diversity is no longer restricted to the coasts or large cities. As figures for individual states are issued, the results of the census are showing rapid increases in the Latino and Asian populations in virtually all sections of the country.

“We now think of the U.S. as multiple melting pots,” said William Frey, a demographer at the Milken Institute of Santa Monica. “The assimilation of [the] 21st century will be regional, with no place in America that looks exactly like this portrait of the whole.”

African Americans are still probably the largest minority group, with a population ranging from 34.6 million to 36.4 million, up from 30 million a decade ago, the Census Bureau reported.

Latinos totaled between 31.8 million and 35.3 million, an increase from 22.4 million in 1990.

The nation is the most ethnically and racially varied in modern times, according to experts, but direct comparisons are difficult because of the changing nature of census questions. For example, 1970 was the first time the census included a question about Latino origin.

“Certainly within the last 40 or 50 years, there is probably more diversity now than ever before,” said Jorge del Pinal, chief of special population statistics at the Census Bureau.

About 2.4% of Americans, some 6.8 million people, reported themselves as belonging to more than one racial group.

The trend to diversity will continue, experts believe. Immigration remains at high levels. And the Asian and Latino populations are younger than the non-Latino whites.

The reported American Indian and Alaska Native population also rose dramatically during the decade, reaching a range of 2.1 million to 4.1 million, compared to 2 million in 1990. As the range shows, the increase appears to have come from people who reported themselves as being both Native American and some other racial group.

Even with the size of minority groups increasing, there is still concern among some minority advocates that the census was not fully accurate.

“They could be way off,” said Art Montez, a member of the Centralia school board in Orange County and past president of the Santa Ana chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens. He said the Latino enrollment in his district’s schools is growing 5% to 10% a semester.

Unified into a single entity to accommodate census shorthand, Latinos will be a complex group as they move into position soon as the nation’s largest minority bloc, demographers said.

“Hispanics, as an interest group, have wanted the large umbrella, but as the group gets larger it may splinter off as people conform more to their national and cultural identities,” Frey said.

Blacks are likely to continue to dominate ethnic politics and federal entitlements, at least for now, experts concluded.

“Most blacks are native-born and citizens and vote more heavily, so they dominate through seniority and through a unity rooted in common experience, which Latinos don’t have,” said Dowell Myers, director of the California Demographic Futures Project at USC. “In the long term, though, this builds a basis for Latino dissatisfaction with lack of representation and influence.”

On initial analysis, the Census Bureau’s first attempt at giving respondents the chance to choose more than one race may yield as much befuddlement as enlightenment.

Among Latinos, 48% listed themselves as white, 42% as “some other race,” 2% as black, and 6% as belonging to two or more races.

The population that checked African American or black alone was 33.9 million. An additional 2.5 million checked black and another racial designation.

The figure was “unexpected, but not surprising,” said Robert Hill, a member of the Census Bureau Committee on Race and Ethnicity. “The higher black multiracial responses are, the more likely it is that they might erode affirmative action and civil rights enforcement. We’re worried about it. That’s why we objected to the multiracial categories in the first place. We’ve opened Pandora’s box.”

Among Asians, 10.5 million checked exclusively an Asian or Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander designation, while another 2.3 million checked Asian and another racial designation.

American Indians were most likely to add another racial designation: 2.1 million checked the Indian category exclusively while another 2 million selected two races.

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Nation’s Diversity

Nearly three in 10 Americans are members of a minority group, according to the census.

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White (non-Latino)

70.4%

69.1%

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Black or African American

12.9%

12.1%

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Asian/ Hawaiian Pacific Islander

4.5%

3.7%

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Latino

12.5%

11.3%

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Note: Because the census allows people to record themselves as belonging to more than one group, percentages for each group are a range.

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Source: The Census Bureau, 2000 Census; data analysis by RICHARD 0’REILLY / Los Angeles Times

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Times staff writers Robin Fields and Solomon Moore in Los Angeles contributed to this story.