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Winds of Change: By Robert Aponte, Ph.D. Marcelo E. Siles, Ph.D. Statistical Brief No. 5 February 1997
A widely publicized Institute report, "Latinos in the Heartland: The Browning of the Midwest" (Aponte and Siles 1994), provided a Latino-focused preliminary assessment of the changing demographic and economic landscape of the Midwest between 1980 and 1990. This follow-up report provides a synopsis of those findings along with several additional findings based on census data not available at the time of the original report's release. These new findings both elaborate on some of the key issues in the earlier report, and provide a more comparative context. In addition, a newly developing pattern of Latino settlement in the rural Midwest is explored. As reported in "The Browning of the Midwest" (Aponte and Siles 1994), although Latinos accounted for over half of the total population growth in the Midwest over the 1980's, in absolute terms, the group's growth was modest. The relative impact of this growth, however, was greatly enhanced by the minimal or negative growth of the region's other groups. The bulk of Latino population growth was centered in Illinois, especially the Chicago metropolitan area, and was overwhelmingly Mexican in origin. In addition, the data strongly suggested that immigration to this area accounted for most of the increase, as against other sources of growth. Finally, "The Browning of the Midwest" (Aponte and Siles 1994), showed that Latinos sustained a significant decrease in real income and correspondingly significant increase in poverty, while the region's Whites experienced a more moderate economic decline and the region's Blacks sustained a devastating blow. Beyond reinforcing the findings of the earlier work, this report shows that the Midwest's severe economic setback was not matched at the national level. Indeed, median household income for the region began the 1980's higher than that for the nation, but ended lower. In addition, this report provides even stronger support to the idea that Mexican immigration accounts for the Chicago-centered pattern of Latino growth in the region. The data elaborated herein also suggest that while Latinos continue to trail Blacks and Whites in educational attainment, there is more catching up going on than is readily apparent. In fact, the educational data on Hispanics are almost certainly downwardly biased by the inclusion of large numbers of lesser educated, recently arrived, immigrants. Finally, this report provides information that since 1990, immigration and internal migration has brought large numbers of Latinos to rural areas; concurrently, the Chicago area may be losing some of its attraction to such migrants. While hard data on these changes are scarce, indications are strongly suggestive that winds of change are upon the region. It should be noted that this report follows the official Census Bureau designation for "the Midwest," which covers only the following 12 states: Illinois (IL), Indiana (IN), Iowa (IA), Kansas (KS), Michigan (MI), Minnesota (MN), Missouri (MO), Nebraska (NB), North Dakota (ND), Ohio (OH), South Dakota (SD), and Wisconsin (WI). In addition, because so few Latinos actually reside in the Dakotas, data on those states may be combined or omitted from illustrations where data are presented for individual states. It should also be noted that all the data presented here, unless otherwise indicated, derive from the U.S. Bureau of the Census's published reports on the 1980 and 1990 census counts. Finally, an important caveat concerning the figures on population change presented here is that in most instances, the actual sources of growth or decline are not specified (or easily determined). Thus, where growth is reported, it may be due to natural increase (excess of births over deaths) or to net migration (more inbound than outbound migrants), or both. In some cases, however, inferences can be made that a particular component (e.g., immigration) largely accounted for particular changes (e.g., growth) because there exists, in such instances, supporting information to substantiate the inferences. Beyond that, the interested reader can find detailed estimates of Latino migrant flows to and from the Midwest in a newly released JSRI report (Saenz and Cready 1997). However, those estimates only cover the latter half (1985/90) of the most recent intercensual interim. Hardcopy Price: $0.00
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