FALLS CHURCH, Va. (By Will Sullivan, U.S.
News) April 16, 2007 — Good Friday is meant to be a reflection on death,
but new life was the order of the day at St. Anthony of Padua's Way of
the Cross procession. More than a thousand predominantly Hispanic
onlookers lined the streets for the Spanish language ceremony, whose
cast of over a hundred wound through several blocks of Falls Church, Va.
But even in the large crowd, the number of baby strollers weaving
through the throng stood out.
President Bush was back on the U.S.-
Mexico border last week, pushing for immigration reform and renewing the
debate about the booming Hispanic influx. But researchers are
increasingly turning their attention to second-generation Hispanics,
whose U.S. birth automatically makes them citizens. As many in the
second generation approach adulthood, they will be the ones who begin to
assuage or aggravate concerns about how schools, the economy, and the
culture will fare in an increasingly Hispanic America. The data so far
reveal a population that is moving forward but one with significant
ground to cover as well.
The demographics are changing rapidly.
While Hispanics made up less than 15 percent of the population in 2005,
the Census Bureau predicts they will be a quarter of the country by
2050. The Hispanic population is expected to jump from 42 million to
over 100 million, making up nearly half of the nation's total projected
growth during that time.
Births
Immigration, both legal and illegal, is
an important component of that growth. But native births spurred by a
high, though declining, Hispanic birthrates have now topped immigration
as the largest driver of the population surge. The median
second generation Hispanic is still in his or her early teens, and
children are rapidly supplanting adults as the face of the Hispanic
boom. "We do about 70 percent of our baptisms in Spanish, even though
only about 35 percent of our parish is Hispanic," says the Rev. Kevin
Walsh, the pastor at St. Philip Roman Catholic parish in Falls Church.
A portrait of the country's Hispanic
population, released by the Census Bureau in February, shows a community
that lags on key measures. A full 40.4 percent lack a high school
diploma, compared with 16.1 percent of the general population. The
median income in Hispanic households is nearly $13,000 lower than in
white households.
But the picture is more optimistic when
only native born Hispanics are included. In 2003, Rand economist James
P. Smith's research suggested Hispanics had historically made
educational and economic progress similar to that of previous European
immigrant waves. While Hispanic immigrants had only about 70 percent the
lifetime earnings of native born whites, the most recent data showed the
second generation cutting that gap nearly in half.
Perhaps the best sign of this growing
assimilation is the high rate of Hispanics marrying outside of their
ethnic group. Few foreign born Hispanics marry non-Hispanics, partly
because many arrive married. But studies show only 68 percent of their
children, and 43 percent of their grandchildren, marry fellow Hispanics.
Definitions
Some experts contend that the Hispanic
population's growth will bring it increasing irrelevance as a
designation. "Hispanic" has always been a more amorphous
characterization than other definitions of origin; the Census Bureau
does not define it as a race. Research from the Pew Hispanic Center
shows Hispanics in later generations increasingly identify as
"white." And America's definition of the majority group has historically
proved elastic, expanding to include previous waves of Irish, Italian,
and Polish immigrants.
Educational and economic disparities
may narrow but will most likely persist long into the future. However,
the most readily voiced fear the Spanish language will displace
English seems the least grounded. Last year, research on Spanish
retention in heavily Mexican Southern California found Mexicans in
the region retain proficiency in their native tongue longer than other
immigrant groups, but English quickly dominates. Fewer than 30 percent
of the children of Mexican immigrants reported preferring to speak
Spanish at home. By generation three, only 17 percent of the
Mexican-Americans spoke fluent Spanish.
"If there's not retention of the
Spanish language in Southern California, it's not going to be retained
anywhere," says Princeton Prof. Douglas Massey, one of the study's
authors.
That includes Falls Church. As they
watched the elaborate Good Friday procession, the adults were wistful.
"Especially in a Spanish country, this happens every year," says Victor
Doria, 47, an immigrant from El Salvador who was playing Pontius Pilate.
And while the parents mostly talked among themselves in Spanish, their
children joked and gossiped in English. By the time the occupants of the
baby carriages have the chance to take the role of Pilate, the Spanish
blaring from the ceremony's sound truck will be English.
