Latinos: 22% of all US Children

A new report released by the PEW Hispanic Center provides the latest information on a topic that began to draw attention several decades ago, when experts began to do the first demographic projections that took into account the potential growth of the Mexican-origin and Latino populations. The study released today indicates that Hispanics are now 22% of all US children under 18 years of age - a dramatic increase over the 9% they represented in 1980. Furthermore, 52% of the 16 million Latino children are the sons or daughters of immigrants.

Among the pioneer scholars who carried out serious studies in the past is David Hayes-Bautista, co-author of the landmark study The Burden of Support: Young Latinos in an Aging Society (Stanford University Press, 1988), which examined the aging of California society, the decline in the birth rates on non-Latinos, the continuing demand for young workers to support the economy, and the roles young Latinos played in contemporary society, as well as different scenarios for California's future (from a best case scenario to a worst case scenario). The state-level analysis emphasized the need to prepare and educate the growing Latino youth because they would constitute the backbone of the future labor force and, hence, the well-being of California would rest on their contributions. Denying them access to education and other opportunities would only endanger California's future.

Another important study conducted by Hayes-Bautista focused on an historic landmark: according to a 2001 study examining county by county births, by the summer of that year the majority of the children being born in California were Latinos. As a consequence, the state would approach a new era in 2019, when these babies would turn into adults and be able to vote.

The new Pew report now draws attention to the importance of developing national-level policies to ensure that these children have fair access to the educational and other opportunities that will enable them to be productive members of society. Denying them access to education, health care and basic civil rights is certainly the wrong approach to follow.