Future is called multihued

CHICAGO — The chances that our children will grow up to marry each other will double by tomorrow, Alejandro Escalona told a roomful of white journalists during a speech titled "The New Latinos."

In Utah, as around the country, adults still lead segregated lives. The state's immigrants work different jobs than do their native-born neighbors. But visit a Utah school and you'll see the multicultural future.

In the Salt Lake School District alone, the proportion of Hispanic students has risen steadily in the past six years, and reached 31 percent, or nearly 7,500 children, in late 2002. And that number is likely to be higher when student statistics are tabulated, said school district spokesman Jason Olsen.

Such growth is but one sign that Hispanics are transforming U.S. communities, added Escalona. During this decade, 6.5 million young, bilingual Hispanics will reach adulthood and will replace the aging, white baby boomers.

Escalona's comments came during a seminar, called "The New Latinos," sponsored by the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

Latino culture has been tasted, seen and heard in "America's sacred place: the ballpark," Escalona continued. Not only are many baseball stars Hispanic, but fans feast on nachos and salsa along with that other American food, the hot dog.

Escalona noted the newly elected governor of California is known for a Spanish phrase so familiar that it can't really be called a foreign language anymore. "Hasta la vista, baby," Arnold Schwarzenegger chants in the "Terminator" movies. Or is it "bebe"?

At the same time, Escalona added, Latinos remain invisible in some quarters. On Sept. 12, 2001, innumerable Mexican nationals lined up outside the Chicago office issuing the matricula consular, a Mexican government-issued photo identification card. The long queue stretched down Michigan Avenue amid 90-degree heat. Escalona observed that no mainstream Chicago newspaper covered it. Only when the line reached nearly a mile down the city's main boulevard did the major media take notice, he said.

There are, however, plenty of other media. Escalona is editor of Hoy, Chicago's wildly successful Spanish language daily. Newspapers like it, as well as Spanish-language TV and radio, are enjoying popularity in nearly every American region.

Escalona called on English-dominant journalists to face the new, multi-ethnic reality around them. And Mexicans aren't the whole story, he added. This country is home to, among others, Colombians, Puerto Ricans, and Argentinians who speak Spanish with an Italian tune.