Latino Population Growth in the U.S. Since 1850

14.2 Percent of Today's U.S. Population Was Born in Another Country

There are 309 million people living in the United States: 265 million were born here, and 43.9 million were born elsewhere. Of those 43.9 million, 47 percent are Latinos; which is quite high when you compare it with census data of the 1950s. During that decade, Latinos weren't even 8 percent of the total foreign-born population in the US.

If we take a look at the US total population between 2000 and 2010 we find that the Latino population born outside the country grew 29.75 percent, while non-Hispanic immigrants, native-born, and total population grew 25.57, 7.29 and 9.96 percent, in that order.

Among Latinos, there are also considerable differences in population growth rates by country of origin. Specifically, the year 2000 was crucial when we talk about Mexican immigration. Mexican immigrants went from a group in continuous growth in the U.S. to one in relatively decline. In areas such as Los Angeles-Long Beach, the Mexican population grew 31 percent in the 90s and declined 8.5 percent in the 2000s.

(Keep reading more below infographic)

While the Costa Rican, Salvadorian, Nicaraguan and Colombian immigrants have experimented slower growth rates in the 21st century, for other Latinos this has not been the case. Among these we can find Bolivians, Venezuelans and Hondurans (with growth rates exceeding 80 percent).

Another example are the Uruguayans. While their growth rate in the 90s was 8.26 percent, between 2000 and 2010 the growth rate went up to 115.45 percent. Of course, since per the 2010 Census there are only 64,000 Uruguayans in the US, minuscule compared to the almost 33 million Mexicans here.

Finally, both the foreign-born Cubans and the Argentineans are undergoing greater growth rates in the 21st century than in the 90s. The Cuban growth rate went from 17.48 to 28.28 percent, while the Argentinean went from 31.60 to 36.63 percent.

Methodology Note

The analysis is based on the IPUMS USA census data.

Click on the following URLs to see the statistics at state level:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bqa1df01xkrdg4s/2FBycsta%28ingl%C3%A9s%29.csv

By Metropolitan Area: https://www.dropbox.com/s/cthofh6tw3q4ln1/2FBycmet%28ingl%C3%A9s%29.csv

By Year: https://www.dropbox.com/s/efmx4f7d485ae0r/3FByear%28ingl%C3%A9s%29.csv

By Citizen vs. Not Citizen: https://www.dropbox.com/s/5h9dlgmt3enr2k7/4CITvsNOTCIT%20%28ingl%C3%A9s%29.csv