Hispanics expected to be state’s majority by 2042
Meredith May, Chronicle Staff Writer
Hispanics will make up a majority of California’s population by 2042, while the state’s highest percentage of Asian Americans will live in Alameda County and Pacific Islanders will concentrate in Santa Clara County, according to projections released Monday by the state Department of Finance.
Since the 1960s, Hispanics have been the state’s fastest-growing immigrant group, and the majority have been from Mexico. Today, Hispanics in California number 13.1 million, one-third of the state’s population. Experts are getting closer to pinpointing a year that Hispanics will replace non-Hispanic whites as California’s new majority group.
“The numbers have been creeping up for years now, and at some point there’s going to be this tilt,” said Melanie Martindale, a demographer with the state Department of Finance. “Maybe if we do our projections again in five years, the tilt year may be a few years different, but either way, it’s going to come.”The trends have been evident for a long time. Immigrants, their children and grandchildren have accounted for more than half the nation’s population increase since 1967, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.
In California, minorities from all groups combined — 20 million — now outnumber whites. Only Washington, D.C., and three other states also have minority-majorities: Hawaii, New Mexico and Washington.
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