By Tatiana Pina and Paul Edward Parker

Hispanic or Latino? Do people prefer one over the other?

Roberto R. Ramirez, head of the ethnicity and ancestry branch of the U.S. Census Bureau’s Population Division, says, “They are considered interchangeable,” by the Census.

Do Hispanics or Latinos feel the same way, or do they have a preference? Do they give it much thought these days?

Sen. Juan Pichardo, 44, who was born in the Dominican Republic and came here as a teenager, says that for him, the two words have become interchangeable enough that people don’t think about them as much.

“Latino and Hispanic are pretty much the same. Early on, about 10 or 15 years ago, that used to be the question. ‘Are you Hispanic or Latino?’ As people did soul searching, we see that we are descendents of Spanish-speaking people. The conclusion is that they are interchangeable. You could identify with both. I think we put it to bed.”

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Local educators not surprised by new Hispanic majority in state’s schools
By Tracy Garcia, Staff Writer

Hispanics may have only recently become the official majority in California’s public school classrooms, but San Gabriel Valley and Whittier area schools have been watching that population shift take place for several years now.

And although some are now calling on school leaders to focus on these students to improve their chances of success in college or the workplace, area educators say they’ll keep working to get all students to the finish line – regardless of ethnicity.

“I think it’s always important to know who you’re teaching, as far as where they’re coming from and their background,” said Pasadena Unified School District board President Bob Harrison.

About 58 percent of PUSD’s 20,000-student enrollment in 2009-10 was Hispanic, according to state statistics.

That’s compared to the nearly 51 percent – or about 3.1 million – of California students who identified themselves as Hispanic in the 2009-10 school year, as reported by the California Department of Education last month.

By contrast, Hispanics made up about 37 percent of the state’s public school enrollment in the 1994-95 school year.

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Advertising Age
By Peter Francese

What will finally drive some growth in the housing industry? It might be nothing more dramatic than a release of demand that’s been pent-up since the start of the recession.

Last week the Census Bureau published results from a March survey that found 117.5 million households in the U.S., up a mere 0.3% from 2009. That’s about one-third the average annual increase over the past decade. Coming on the heels of an equally meager increase of 400,000 from 2008 to 2009, this suggests a coming wave of new households once the economy loosens.

As of March, 12 million American families are living with 21 million of their adult children, a record high. One fourth of those “kids” are age 25 or older. As the economy improves, most of these adult children will probably (hopefully?) leave the nest and jump start the housing market’s recovery.

Other noteworthy trends
The fraction of households that are married couples with children under age 18 is edging ever closer to just one in five households. The number of U.S. married couples with children has not changed in over 40 years. Now, as in 1967, there are 24.6 million of them.

One-person households, at 31.4 million, are significantly more numerous than married couples with children and now make up 27% of all households. The reason: People who live alone (most of whom are women) have more than tripled since 1967, while married couples with children have stagnated. Another reason is the aging population: The average age of people who live alone is 56.6 years old, and among ages 65 or older, almost half of all households (45%) are single individuals.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. still faces a significant gap in residential broadband use that breaks down along incomes, education levels and other socio-economic factors, even as subscriptions among American households overall grew sevenfold from 2001 to 2009.

What’s more, even when controlling for key socio-economic characteristics, the U.S. continues to confront a racial gap in residential broadband use, with non-Hispanic white Americans and Asian-Americans more likely to go online using a high-speed connection than African-Americans and Hispanics.

Those are some of the key conclusions of a new analysis of Census data released Monday by the Commerce Department.

It found that the percentage of households that connect to the Internet using broadband grew to 63.5 percent in 2009 from 9.2 percent in 2001, reflecting increases across nearly all demographics.

The report — prepared by the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration and the Economics and Statistics Administration — is based on a Census survey of about 54,000 households conducted in October 2009.

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By Carol Morello and Dan Keating

Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, November 4, 2010

The Washington region, with the most affluent and one of the most highly educated Hispanic communities in the nation, has lots of people like Charles Vela.

A Salvadoran-born research engineer who runs his own consulting company, Expertech Solutions, Vela came Washington to work on a National Academy of Sciences brain-mapping project. He stayed to develop new ways for the IRS to handle tax returns, for the State Department to detect fraudulent visa applications and for NASA to operate its space telescope.

Now Vela earns a six-figure income, and he and his family live in Potomac, where he said he moved partly to give the children he mentors a taste of the affluence that a science career can bring.

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By Nadia Tamez-Robledo
The Pan-American

Mexico’s bicentennial may have passed like any other Sept. 16 at The University of Texas-Pan American if not for the posters featuring a mustachioed Bucky the Bronc promising face painting and bingo at the Student Union.

Across the border, Mexico threw itself a $40 million birthday party last Thursday. Parades filled streets of Mexico City while the scents of posole, tamales and other traditional dishes wafted through homes, said Reynosa native Hector Vivanco. The 22-year-old political relations major celebrated in Edinburg due to the violence in his hometown.

“It gives me a lot of pride,” Vivanco said. “I’m a Mexican in the U.S. Because I’m far from Mexico, I appreciate it.”

All the fanfare commemorated the day Father Miguel Hidalgo rang the church bells in Dolores, Mexico, and signaled the start of the country’s revolution against Spain in 1810.

The University Program Board’s Heritage Committee sought to bring a piece of the revelry to UTPA students with a 16 de Septiembre event featuring mariachi musicians and folklorico dancers on stage while onlookers sampled Mexican food.

“Whatever culture you consider yourself, it’s important to be open to other cultures and how they celebrate,” said 19-year-old Rigoberto Gutierrez, chair of the committee. “We live in a place that is a mix of Mexican and American culture. I’m Hispanic myself, and I’ve lived in Mexico.”

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By Associated Press
Rapid City Journal

The U.S. Census Bureau says the number of Hispanic-owned businesses in South Dakota has grown at a higher rate than the nation in five years.

The state saw an increase of 68 percent from 2002 to 2007, while the nation saw a 44 percent climb.

Despite the growth, Hispanic-owned businesses still make up only a fraction of businesses in the state. South Dakota has 595 Hispanic-owned businesses, or less than 1 percent of the state’s 77,134 businesses.

Hispanic-owned operations in South Dakota saw a greater growth in revenue, with receipts more than doubling from 2002 to 2007. In 2007, Hispanic-owned businesses in the state reported $317 million in revenue.

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The market is growing: The 2010 Census expected to count a record 50 million Hispanics, or one in every six U.S. residents, meaning the Hispanic population will have increased a stunning 42% from the previous census in 2000. (By comparison, the non-Hispanic population will have edged up just 5% in that decade.) It’s also got scale: Hispanics are now the nation’s second-largest consumer market after white non-Hispanics, who are still the largest group at about 200 million.

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The Pew Hispanic Center survey, released Thursday, appears largely to put aside concerns that Hispanic discontent with the government’s slow progress on immigration reform will curtail participation in the high-stakes count now underway. The National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders had suggested a Hispanic boycott of the Census to protest the lack of action on immigration.

Hispanics, who make up roughly 15% of the nation’s population, still tend to lag behind other racial groups when it comes to mailing in Census forms. But the latest survey suggests the numbers may be improving and that, contrary to conventional notions, the hardest-to-reach may not be fearful immigrants but rather disenchanted Hispanics born in the U.S.

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