The new majority

When Manuel Velasco immigrated to Utah from Mexico 13 years ago, his children at first found few Hispanic classmates. He says it was rare to find a restaurant that understood Spanish for his weekly dates with his wife as he learned English.

"Now Latinos may even have overcome (white) Americans" in numbers at his children's schools in West Valley City, he says. "Most businesses now speak Spanish, and many offer products specifically for Latinos." And growth has come so fast that Velasco, branch president of a Spanish-speaking LDS Church congregation, says it has split eight times for growth in 13 years.

That appears to be a prelude to even bigger change. Hispanics, blacks, Asians, Pacific Islanders and other minorities won't be in the minority for long. In 34 years, new census projections estimate they as a group will be in the new majority in America — outnumbering whites. In just 15 years, they will become the majority among children.

"Baby boomers' kids and grandkids are going to have a completely different experience than they did. They (baby boomers) grew up during the whitest, most homogenous period racially and ethnically in our country in the last century," said University of Utah research economist Pam Perlich.

"It will not be the same experience growing up in Utah now as it was 50, 40 or even 30 years ago. It never will be again. The genie is out of the bottle, because we are connecting more globally," and more diverse groups are coming to America and Utah and often are having more children than whites, she said. "I call it the new Utah."

Census Bureau projections released today say that minorities — which now make up a third of the U.S. population — are expected to become the majority in 2042. Among working adults, they are expected to become the majority by 2039.

Among children, they will become the majority by 2023 — and that is expected to grow to 62 percent by 2050.

The populations of Hispanics and Asians are both expected to nearly triple by 2050. Pacific Islanders are expected to double. And the population of blacks is expected to increase about 15 percent.

Meanwhile, the population of non-Hispanic whites nationally is projected to increase only slightly, from about 199.8 million now to 203.3 million in 2050 as fertility rates among whites have dropped essentially to replacement rates.

The new projections do not include state-by-state data. But estimates released last week by the census show how fast recent growth among some minorities already has been in Utah.