If immigration were to merely slow, rather than stop, non-Hispanic whites, who now account for nearly two-thirds of the population, would become a minority by 2050, according to the projections released Wednesday. If the pace of immigration increases, that benchmark could be reached as early as 2040.
Even if no new immigrants arrived, said William H. Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution, the Hispanic share of the population would rise from about 14 percent in 2010 to between 21 percent (with no further immigration) and 31 percent (with the highest projected immigration) in 2050.
Quoted from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/18/us/18census.html?_r=2&emc=tnt&tntemail1=y
I find this term "non-Hispanic whites" very interesting. First of all, what does it mean? It means that demographers don't want to put Hispanics who identify as 'white' according to the Census (which turns out to be about half of all Mexicans) in the same group as those whites without any Hispanic ancestry. This really doesn't make much sense to me. Any thoughts on this?
I also don't understand how "non-Hispanic whites" can be considered a minority. Who would we consider the majority group to be? Hispanics may represent over 30% of the population by 2050, but they still wouldn't outnumber whites. Blacks make up 12% of the population and are not growing nearly as quickly as Hispanics. Asians are at 4%. The only way it would make sense to think of whites as a minority is if you count all of the non-whites as one monolithic "people of color" group. But that doesn't make much sense to me. Am I just missing something here?
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