Whose culture is it anyway?
by digby
Limbaugh: LA Times has a story today, Census Bureau data, as of July 1st last year, 14.99 million Latinos live in California, 14.92 million whites.
So the number of Latinos now outnumbers whites in California, but like Chester said, they’re not all coming here to join our culture.
[A]s of July 1, 2014, about 14.99 million Latinos live in California, edging out the 14.92 million whites in the state.
The shift shouldn’t come as a surprise. State demographers had previously expected the change to occur sometime in 2013, but slow population growth pushed back projections. In January 2014, the state Department of Finance estimated the shift would take place at some point in March.
Either way, the moment has officially arrived.
“This is sort of the official statistical recognition of something that has been underway for almost an entire generation,” said Roberto Suro, director of the Tomás Rivera Policy Institute at USC.
California is now the first large state and the third overall — after Hawaii and New Mexico — without a white plurality, according to state officials.
What does this have to do with illegal immigration? Not much, actually. I know it will come as a shock to white conservative bigots everywhere but the vast majority of Latinos in California are Americans. In fact huge numbers of them are the children, grandchildren and great grandchildren of Americans.
Right wingers are very confused about all this and think that all Latinos in America are “illegals”. Either that or they think that all these Americans don’t want to “join our culture” even though they were born into it. As a 4th generation Californian who lives in a city called “Santa Monica” in a county named “Los Angeles” I can attest to the fact that we’re the ones who joined their culture, not the other way around. (And these All-American kids with Latino names know exactly what Rush is saying, by the way. He may not realize they speak English but that’s because he’s a moron.)
And, by the way, California is going to be way better off for it:
The Latino population is relatively young, with a median age of about 29, while the aging white population has a median age of 45. State demographers project Latinos will account for about 49% of Californians by 2060.
A young Latino workforce helps the economy by backfilling retiring baby boomers, said John Malson, the chief demographer for the state finance department.
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