Half of America's Population Growth Now Hispanic

A Hispanic baby boom accounts for more than half of America's population growth over the last decade, the Houston Chronicle reports. A survey found 50.5% of the growth in that period was among Hispanics, even though the group currently makes up just 15% of the population. The growth is due more to births than immigration, the Pew Hispanic Center report found.

"What's fueling the growth is the natural increase, the US-born babies, of the previous immigrants," a sociologist says. The demographic remains concentrated in the south and west, but the report found the Hispanic population is now rapidly expanding in parts of the northeast and northwest where there were very few Hispanic residents only a decade ago.
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