Latino population's growth redefines US

By Jose de la Isla

Mark Mardell, North America editor of the British Broadcasting Corp., was in Springdale, Ark., for a recent windshield view of the United States' Latino future, trying to tease out what is relevant from what is trivial.

Nearly a third of Springfield's 71,400 residents are Latino. Mardell says he's interested in how this population can "change the culture, indeed the very nature, of the United States itself."

The rest of the nation probably will become more like Springdale in the years ahead. Right now, about 16 percent of the U.S. population is Latino; by 2030, roughly 22 percent ― or one in five U.S. residents ― likely will be, both the Pew Hispanic Center and the Population Reference Bureau project.

Mardell tells his European audience something much of the U.S. public doesn't like being reminded of: "Large swaths of the Southwest were still part of Mexico until the mid-19th century ― just a heartbeat ago in historical terms."

He observes some children folk dancing and calls it "a harbinger of America's future," because one in four Americans under 18 is Hispanic. To him, Hispanics are Spanish speakers with Latin American roots. In fact, nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of Latinos are U.S.-born.

English-language acquisition is at an unprecedented, historically high rate, although the casual viewer doesn't see this. Nor is it well understood that both U.S. and foreign-born children grow up bilingual. Unfortunately, children will often become monolingual later in life, especially if current trends continue.

In fact, a windshield understanding of these trends might be altogether upside down. The Pew Hispanic Center estimates an 8 percent intermarriage rate for foreign-born Hispanics, 32 percent for the second generation, and 57 percent for the third and successive generations. If that is true, we might be seeing the end of Latinos as we know them by 2030.

Then what?

One of the interviewees seemed to have a better handle on the social identity Mardell was really after. A young woman in Texas told him, "People ask when (was it) my relatives came across the border. I tell them, 'The border came across my ancestors.' "

She means the annexation of great parts of North America into what is now the United States. Swatches of people are descendants of those who experienced such times and circumstances.

Another Springdale resident tells Mardell, "Living here, we have a lot to learn, but we also have a lot to teach, like the family unit, the sense of community, the loyalty to our traditions."

So what are the other public lessons?

One of them is the story about representation itself, how it got lost and how some of it is being regained. This story is about how a mistake was made in democracy, much like with Native Americans. Representation in the former Mexican territories was lost when the border crossed the ancestors, and the lands were branded "USA."

Only in the last half century, through civic alliances and new constituencies, has some public representation been regained. The vision of this nation's future is bright because of that.

People don't folk dance to bring about better representation. They dance as an expression of it increasing.

Myra Rivas, one of the dancers, says the growing Latino population provides both continuity and a new vision. The country, she says, "will make a huge change because America is (becoming) more than just America."

Jose de la Isla, a nationally syndicated columnist for Hispanic Link and Scripps Howard news services, is author of "The Rise of Hispanic Political Power."