In 2002, Hispanics became the largest minority group in the United States.

This population level was not expected to be reached until 2014.

Hispanics accounted for half of the population growth in the United States between 2000-2002 resulting from both continued immigration and high birth rates.

The U.S. Hispanic community has more than doubled since 1980, according to census data.

There were 38.8 million Hispanics in July 2002, or 13 percent of the national total, according to new figures based on birth and death records, visa documents and other data. The black population, long the nation's largest minority group, numbered 38.3 million.

The status as the nation's largest minority is also a cultural event, one with both broad implications and subtle distinctions. The term minority has long been associated with blacks, for example, but now the "largest minority" includes a sizable number of whites because nearly half of Hispanics identify themselves that way.

Until now, the largest minority was a racial group. Hispanics, as an ethnic group composed of many ancestries, are harder to classify and often resist customary U.S. racial categories. And 1.7 million Hispanics also are black, a community heavily concentrated in New York and Florida.

Despite the strong effect of immigration, three in five Hispanics were born in the United States.

Many families have lived in the Southwest for generations, and Hispanics have been a majority in communities along the U.S.-Mexican border for decades.

In 23 states, Hispanics were the largest minority in the 2000 Census.

Most Hispanics live in the suburbs.

Nearly half live in 10 large metropolitan areas, though their numbers also are growing in small towns in the South and Midwest.

A third are younger than 18.

Hispanics or Latinos -- the census bureau now uses both terms -- are less likely than non-Hispanic whites to have a high school education and to be employed; they are more likely to live in poverty. Two-thirds are of Mexican origin.

Excerpted from article by D'Vera Cohn
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 19, 2003; Page A01