Don’t be alarmed, but according to a new study by William Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., Denver’s non-Hispanic white population has recently fallen below 50 percent.
Denver is among three cities – the others are Phoenix and Tucson – that are transforming the Old West into the New West. (Or is it back to the real West. I can’t remember.)
According to Frey, Denver lost about 16,000 whites between 2000 and 2005 and gained nearly 16,000 Hispanics.
And Frey predicts that other cities will soon follow as non-Hispanic whites become a minority in Arlington, Texas; Charlotte, N.C.; and Las Vegas within two years. Austin, Texas, within four.
Is there any special reason the Latino population has migrated to Denver in such large numbers? The motivations are the same as anyone else: economic opportunities.
“The Hispanic population is known to be in search of work,” Frey explains. “When they come to Denver, they see jobs and they are willing to take those jobs. There is obviously a demand for them. From that perspective, it is a growth of a minority population that is eager to contribute to the economy.”
Eager to contribute and, very often, just as eager to assimilate.
According to a Pew Hispanic Center study, for instance, approximately 80 percent of third-generation Hispanics in the United States speak English as the dominant language, putting this immigrant population in line with those of the past.
“A large part of this big wave of immigrants are people who don’t have very high levels of education. They are coming to take service jobs, construction jobs and so-called jobs that Americans don’t want to do,” says Frey. “That’s where what I think nationally and locally we have a real challenge to make sure that educationally institutions are able to lift the children of these immigrants up to be competitive in the labor force.”
No doubt, the news that Denver’s Hispanic population is growing at such an extraordinary rate will generate more anger from the isolationist crowd – a crowd that too often believes the challenge is keeping all Hispanics out – not illegal aliens but all aliens.
This week, Patrick Buchanan’s new tome of the apocalypse, “State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America,” hit No. 1 on the best-seller list on Amazon.com.
The book was a follow-up to the equally optimistic “Death of the West: How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Country and Civilization.”
Buchanan preaches a brand of isolationism and xenophobia that has many fans around these parts.
Though Buchananites have claimed the patriotic high ground for themselves, in my estimation they are the ones who lack faith in this country. If we were strong enough to assimilate the impoverished immigrants of their ancestors, why stop now?
“I think politicians have to worry especially in a city where the Hispanic population is at 35 percent. Sooner or later, those people are going to vote in responsible numbers, so you can’t be too hard on them,” Frey says. “This means that politicians from both sides of the fence have to be sensitive to this attacking the new immigrants or the new Hispanics because it may come back to bite them.”
Will Colorado conservatives realize those realities before it’s too late? Hispanic immigrants, after all, are in the first stages of their journey here in Denver. One day they will join the middle class in larger numbers.
I assume many won’t want to pay high taxes or have their businesses overregulated. (Hispanic-owned businesses in the U.S. grew 43 percent, to 1.6 million, from 1997 to 2002.)
We already know that Hispanic dedication to this nation’s defense is second to none. One need only glance at the names of fallen soldiers of Iraq.
We’ll all be better off welcoming Denver’s growing Hispanic population.
David Harsanyi’s column appears Monday and Thursday.
He can be reached at 303-820-1255 or dharsanyi@denverpost.com.
