Latinos Set To Grow In The Census — But Who Cares?

Latinos are going to be big in the Census, as we’ve reported, but one writer says this is irrelevant. Miguel Perez writes that, every time the Census comes out the media storyline goes something like, “Everything will change now because X group is growing.” But, he says, ultimately, nothing ever does.

Of course, being “the largest minority” means absolutely nada. It’s a completely worthless title that only serves to further scare those who already suffer from immigration paranoia. It exaggerates the false perception, shared by some white Americans, that Latinos are “taking over.” And it makes some African-Americans — having lost their “largest minority” title — erroneously assume that Latinos are going after their small share of the American pie.

Perhaps the blame should go to all the politicians who have spent years telling Latinos that “soon, you will be the nation’s largest minority group” — as if that would solve all our problems.

It was all lip service, a phony way of promising empowerment without having to do anything to help Latinos obtain it. They knew that mere population numbers would not automatically make Latinos the most influential minority — or even one that is represented adequately in politics. But they went ahead and flaunted the fabricated and fictitious “largest minority” milestone, perhaps without realizing that it could be used to scare those who already feel some apprehension about the growing number of U.S. Latinos.

What more, Perez points out that Latinos surpassed African-Americans as the “largest” minority in 2002 when the numbers grew to 38.8 million, more than the 37.6 million African-Americans in the country. I think Perez makes a good point, when you talk about politics, but there are other factors at play. There’s education, there’s lots and lots of money, there are cultural shifts and a lot of other ways in which Latinos are going to be impacting this country by their sheer numbers.

What do you think, does it matter how many Latinos there are in the U.S.?