Making Sense of a Hispanic USA

The Hispanic population is increasing and the increase between 2006 and 2007 came from births. The economic consequences of this increase are important for the US economy:

"As Americans age and the baby boom generation retires, Hispanics may help buttress the economy and the Social Security system. The average white woman in the U.S. has 1.8 children, which is under the replacement rate of 2.1 necessary to maintain a stable population. Hispanic women, meanwhile, give birth on average to 2.8 children." ""If you are pro-economic growth, you must be pro-immigration and pro-Hispanic, because we don't have the workers," says Donald Terry, a senior official at the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington."

The political consequences of this increase are also important:

"Anyone who does the math knows that America is on track to become a white-minority nation in three to four decades. Yet if there’s any coherent message to be gleaned from the hypocrisy whipped up by Hurricane Jeremiah [a reference to Rev. Jeremiah Wright's recent declarations], it’s that this nation’s perennially promised candid conversation on race has yet to begin." This conversation already began with the Civil Rights movement; perhaps, what we need is a conversation on class——poverty is at the intersection of many of the disadvantages and lack of opportunities for Whites, Blacks, and Latinos.