1.24.2005

Hispanic Trends

A People in Motion

Pew Hispanic Center

This chapter of the Pew Research Center's inaugural publication entitled "Trends 2005" describes how the current wave of immigrants has turned Latinos into this nation's largest minority group. At the end of 2004, 40.4 million Hispanics lived in this country, 14 percent of the total U.S. population. Latinos are now not only the nation's fastest-growing minority group, but also its largest.

Latino immigrants have birth rates twice as high as those of the rest of the U.S. population, foretelling a sharp increase ahead in the percentage of Latinos who will be in schools and the work place. Between now and 2020, Latinos are expected to account for about half the growth of the U.S. labor force.

More on Hispanic trends can be found in the complete report.

The full Trends 2005 report, which includes chapters from each of the six projects that comprise the Pew Research Center, is available from pewresearch.org.

More on Demography

Unauthorized Immigrants and Their U.S.-Born Children

The Latino Digital Divide: The Native Born versus The Foreign Born

How Young Latinos Communicate with Friends in the Digital Age

Statistical Portrait of Hispanics in the United States, 2008

Statistical Portrait of the Foreign-Born Population in the United States, 2008