Latinos
Identification Americans originating from
Spanish-speaking countries
During the 1990’s, the United States experienced an un-
precedented increase in the Latino population, affecting the
countr y’s demographics, educational system, politics, and
culture.
The term “Latino” is often used interchangeably
with “Hispanic.” Both terms are used to identify per-
sons of Latin American and Caribbean heritage liv-
ing within the United States. The term “Hispanic” is
derived from the Iberian Peninsula, which contains
Spain and Portugal, the two countries which colo-
nized Latin America. Some people dislike this term,
believing it ignores Latin American indigenous heri-
tage. The term “Latino” refers instead to Latin
America, including countries that largely share the
Spanish language, the Catholic religion, and a colo-
nialist past.
The countries of origin for Latinos in the United
States include all of the Latin American and Carib-
bean countries. The majority of Latinos can trace
their heritage to Mexico. At the end of the twentieth
century, Americans of Mexican descent made up
66 percent of the Latino population, Central and
South Americans as a group made up 14.5 percent,
Puerto Ricans 9 percent, and Cubans 4 percent.
Immigration During the 1990’s, the Latino popula-
tion grew from an estimated 22.4 million in 1990 to
32.8 million in 2000. The influx of immigrants can
be attributed to a number of factors. Beginning in
the 1980’s and continuing into the 1990’s, Mexico
experienced economic hard times. Their national
currency, the peso, dropped to half of its previous
value. The North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA), effective January 1, 1994, led to the fail-
ure of many family farms in Mexico and Central
America, as they could not compete with tariff-free
corn and grains grown by corporate farms in the
United States. Factory work that was available in
Mexico, producing goods for the U.S. market, was at
a poor rate of pay and often entailed unhealthy liv-
ing and working conditions. Similar jobs in the
United States would pay a worker ten times the sal-
ary received in Mexico. Instead of lowering the num-
ber of Latin American immigrants entering the
United States, as predicted by President Bill Clinton,
NAFTA may have actually increased the number of
Mexicans crossing the border.
Demographics At the end of the twentieth century,
one in eight people in the United States were Latino.
Latinos live in urban areas, with 91.5 percent living
in metropolitan areas, compared with 77 percent of
non-Hispanic whites. States with the largest Latino
populations are California, Texas, Arizona, Nevada,
and New Mexico. Depending on their country of ori-
gin, Latinos tend to reside in different areas of the
country. Mexicans are likely to settle in the West and
the South, Cubans in the South (Florida), and
Puerto Ricans in the Northeast (New York City and
New Jersey).
Latinos are more likely than their white non-
Hispanic counterparts (by a two-to-one ratio) to be
employed in service occupations and as operators
and laborers. In 1990, median family income for a
Latino family was $25,064, and as of 1999 it had risen
to $31,663. Median family income for a white non-
Hispanic family in 1999 was $54,121.
The Latino population in the United States is
much younger than that of the white non-Hispanic
population. Latino immigrants are likely to be
young and of childbearing years, quite different
from the baby-boomer age demographics of the
white non-Hispanic population in the United States.
As of 1999, only 14.5 percent of Latinos were age
forty-five to sixty-four, as compared to 24 percent of
white non-Hispanics. Latinos sixty-five years or older
made up only 5.3 percent of the Latino community,
compared with 14 percent of the non-Hispanic
whites. Latinos fell largely into two younger age
groups, twenty-five to forty-four-year-olds (29.5 per-
cent) and those less than eighteen (35.7 percent).
This large number of childbearing-age Latinos,
with a birthrate almost double that of the non-
Latino population, resulted in a large second gener-
ation of school-age Latinos. This second generation
differed from their parents in many ways: They were
born with U.S. citizenship and mastered the English
language at a much younger age than their parents.
These two factors gave the second generation op-
portunities in education and employment that were
not available to their parents.
Education Education became the key for improv-
ing the quality of life for recent immigrant popula-
tions. In the 1970’s, 30 percent of Latinos graduated
from high school, rising to 40 percent in the 1980’s,The Nineties in America Latinos 507