The US: Hispanics and Generational Replacement

Were it not for the higher birth rate among the Hispanic demographic, the United States would show notable aging of its population and a significant decrease in its working-age cohort.

Projections show that by 2050, the population of the United States will reach 400 million inhabitants, among whom 112 million will be of Hispanic descent. In other words, close to one-third of its population will have Latin American ancestry (Idelise Malavé and Esti Giordani, Latino Stats: American Hispanics by the Numbers, New York: 2015).

Much is being said about the illegal entry of Latin Americans into the United States. That projects an inaccurate perception that the majority of the Latino population growth stems from current migration flows. This could not be further from the truth. The Hispanic increase stems from the higher birth rate found among United States citizens of Latino origin: 23% versus 7% for the U.S. population as a whole. Today, two out of every three Hispanics in the United States were born there, and one out of every four births in the country is from a Latino couple (Malavé and Giordani).

United States citizens of Latino descent can trace their roots back to one of two groups: the descendants of those who crossed the border and of those who were crossed by the border. The history of the latter is without doubt the most significant, as it was the result of Washington’s expansionist policies.

The war of 1845-1848 between the United States and Mexico, dictated by the appetite for territorial expansion of the former and reflected in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that put an end to the conflict, substantially increased the United States’ territory: California, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona and Colorado henceforth enlarged the continental scope of the United States at Mexico’s expense. Texas was also absorbed, even though in this particular case, the endeavor corresponded to U.S. settlers who already lived there. Ultimately, a significant part of the Mexican population was crossed by the border, thus becoming second-class citizens in a foreign country.

Under different circumstances, Puerto Rico also fell into the United States’ hands against its will. From 1860 onward, an independence movement strove to liberate the archipelago from the Spanish yoke. This would, however, come to fruition along an unanticipated route. The Spanish-American War of 1898 caused the island to shake itself free of one colonial metropolis only to fall into the hands of another. In 1917, U.S. citizenship was offered to Puerto Ricans by way of the Jones-Shafroth Act. Nevertheless, this was a second-class citizenship: They were not allowed representation in Congress, nor were they, for the time being, allowed to choose their governor. What it did bring them was the opportunity to move freely within the United States’ continental territory; it was in this way that hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans journeyed there. Notwithstanding, just as with the previous case, the Puerto Ricans did not cross the border; on the contrary, they were crossed by the border.

Yet, there were also those who did cross the border. These individuals first let their presence be known during the time of the Mexican Revolution, when 1 million Mexicans emigrated to the United States fleeing the civil war. Other migratory waves, among which the Cuban wave after the ’70s is a notable example, repeated this same process. Thus, the majority of the Hispanic population in the United States descends from those who crossed the border or from those who were instead crossed by it.

President Donald Trump’s political obsession with the wall, and the extreme and inhumane measures that he has taken against undocumented immigrants from the south, bears no relation whatsoever to the magnitude of this immigration. On the contrary, the overreaction is linked to a different phenomenon: the anxieties resulting from a change in the ethnic configuration of the country.

According to an analysis from the Brookings Institute, “Trump is clearly capitalizing on what The New York Times columnist Charles Blow has termed ‘white extinction anxiety.’” “For the first time since the Census Bureau has released these annual statistics,” wrote William Frey, a demographer for Brookings, “they show an absolute decline in the nation’s white non-Hispanic population — accelerating a phenomenon that was not projected to occur until the next decade.” (Andre M. Perry, “Trump reveals ‘zero tolerance’ for democracy,” June 25, 2018)

In the midst of this heated debate, little is said about the fact that were it not for the higher birth rate among the Hispanic demographic, the United States would show notable aging of its population and a significant decrease in its working-age cohort. This capacity for generational renewal is precisely the largest comparative advantage that the United States has against its principal strategic rival, China. While multiple indicators show China to be the nation with the most rapid population aging on the planet, the United States will have a young, thriving population at its disposal.