According to 2010 Census, about
308.7 million people were living in the United States, and 50.5 million were
the Hispanic or Latino origin, equivalent to 16% of the total population. There
was a 43% increase in the Hispanic or Latino population since 2000 Census. This
information was gathered when people
checked the box of the Census questions about their origin. Hispanic or
Latino origin refers to a person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or
Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin regardless of
race. The Hispanic population had a bigger growth in the South and
Midwest, although it had a growth in every region of the country. The graph
below shows the distribution of the Hispanic or Latino population by country of
origin.
The eight states with the highest
Hispanic/Latino population are California, Texas, Florida, New York, Illinois,
Arizona, New Jersey and Colorado.
Eight
states in the south of the country (Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Maryland,
Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee) and South Dakota had doubled the
size of the Hispanic/Latino population from
2000 to 2010.Based on the information from Census 2000 and 2010, the fastest
growth of the Hispanic or Latino population occurred in two states in the
south, South Carolina and Alabama. South Carolina grew from 95,000 to 236,000
(148% increase) and Alabama grew from 76,000 to 186,000 (145% increase).
Due to
the considerable rapid growth of the Hispanic/Latino population in the United
States, it’s time to move toward a better understanding of the needs of the
diverse population in our schools. School’s administrators need to offer
specific Professional Development workshops for staff and faculty to better
equip them to help ELL students with their second language acquisition. It’s
also important to create a cross-cultural awareness among staff, faculty and
students in general.
As Burke (2002) wrote, “the challenge before us is to admit the intrinsic role that ethnic, linguistic, racial, and religious cultures play in political, economic, and social relationships and consider how to mixing rather than extirpation of these cultures can lead to networks of collaboration, rather than of domination.”
