"Among the Hispanic pop., there were roughly 9 births for every 1 death". Discuss.

[agamemnus]

By CONOR DOUGHERTY

Whites are on the verge of becoming a minority among newborn children in the U.S., marking a demographic shift that is already reshaping the nation's politics and economy.

The Census reported Thursday that nonwhite minorities accounted for 48.6% of the children born in the U.S. between July 2008 and July 2009, gaining ground from 46.8% two years earlier. The trajectory suggests that minority births will soon eclipse births of whites of European ancestry.

"The question is just when," said Kenneth Johnson, senior demographer at the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire. He guesses the demographic milestone will be crossed in the next few years, and could happen as early as 2011.

America's changing face has transformed race relations from the traditional divide of black and white to a more complex mix of race, language and religion. There are new strains on schools and social services, while immigration has emerged as one of the nation's most contentious issues—as evidenced by Arizona's recent law that makes illegal immigration a state crime.

A number of forces are pushing the U.S. toward a "majority minority" future. The median age of the white population is older than that of nonwhites, and thus a larger share of minority women are in prime child-bearing years. In addition, white women are having fewer children than nonwhites, while the growth in mixed marriages has led to more multiracial births.

The recession has slowed the transformation by reducing immigration. It also has made people of all races less willing to start families. But births among nonwhites slowed less than those among whites between July 2008 and July 2009. Among the Hispanic population, there were roughly nine births for every one death, compared with a roughly one-to-one ratio for whites.

Minorities made up 35% of the U.S. population between July 2008 and July 2009, up from 31% in 2000, the Census said. While immigration is a touchy political issue, it is not the driving factor behind the nation's growing diversity. Hispanics, for instance, accounted for 54.7% of the total population increase between July 2008 and July 2009, but about two-thirds of that gain came from births.

Charlotte, N.C., and surrounding Mecklenburg County offer a microcosm of the diversifying nation. A statue of Mahatma Gandhi stands in front of the historic county courthouse, a gift from the Charlotte Asian Heritage Association. Food Lion, a supermarket chain in the Southeast, spent the past year adding thousands of Hispanic food items to 19 Charlotte area stores. In 1990, 70.3% of the county was white. Today, it is 54.6%, and Mecklenburg County's youngest whites are a minority among their peers.

Ki-Hyun Chun, a Korean immigrant, started a small immigrant-focused accounting firm in the 1970s. Today, in addition to his firm, he runs an Asian library with 130,000 books and a three-language Asian newspaper out of his building on the edge of downtown Charlotte.

The shifting mix has "changed our definition of diversity," said Ann Clark, chief academic officer of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district. The district, for example, used to put its teachers through training to overcome racial biases that usually cut along black-and-white lines. Now, the district focuses more on reaching kids who live in poverty or don't speak English at home. It has hired four full-time translators and started a program to educate teachers about poverty.

Esselito Solano, a 31-year-old who owns a company that makes stone kitchen counters, said he felt like an outsider when he emigrated to the U.S. from the Philippines in the mid-1980s. He remembers being perplexed when an elementary-school teacher made him throw away the remainders of his cafeteria lunch instead of bringing it home, a wasteful move in his native country.

Today, his young daughters are growing up as part of a nonwhite majority. In 2006, the most recent data available, 43% of the babies born in Mecklenburg County were non-Hispanic whites, according to health statistics. "They're not going to have a hard time blending in," said Mr. Solano.

Charlotte's business and social institutions also reflect the change. The Charlotte Chamber of Commerce has expanded minority membership via a program that gives discounts to several racial and ethnic chambers. In 2007, the NAACP of North Carolina formed a coalition called Historic Thousands on Jones Street People's Assembly, which is made up of 93 North Carolina advocacy groups that represent various races and ethnicities. "With this changing demographic, we had to operate in coalition," said Rev. William Barber, president of the NAACP of North Carolina.

America has long been on a path toward becoming a more diverse nation, and several states, including California and Texas, are already "majority minority." But in the past decade or so, the dual forces of assimilation and the housing boom have pushed diversity beyond gateway cities into the suburbs and across states that hadn't traditionally attracted immigrants.

Philip Maung started off in a gateway city, immigrating to Los Angeles from Burma (now Myanmar) in 1989. He moved to Charlotte in 1997 to start Hissho Sushi, now a 400-store company that sells sushi out of kiosks in airports and grocery stores. The company's 50,000-square-foot headquarters has offices, warehousing and a chilled room where a dozen employees begin rolling sushi at 3:30 a.m. "In a bigger city like New York or L.A., I wouldn't have had a shot," said Mr. Maung.

Although he has achieved the American dream, Mr. Maung said he wanted his two boys, both born in Charlotte, to understand where he came from. Two years ago, he sent the kids back to Asia to spend time learning Chinese and living in the developing world. "They'll come back with their eyes open," he said.

A Fun Rant

Now, there is no question that most Hispanics in America have a lot of children. Neither is there a question that they are young when they do.

The shifting mix has "changed our definition of diversity," said Ann Clark, chief academic officer of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district. The district, for example, used to put its teachers through training to overcome racial biases that usually cut along black-and-white lines. Now, the district focuses more on reaching kids who live in poverty or don't speak English at home. It has hired four full-time translators and started a program to educate teachers about poverty.

This is completely unacceptable. This is not diversity -- it is the forced social acceptance of a permanent and growing underclass in American society. Four decades ago, Hispanics would be called names and put on the back of the bus because they are different. Now, they are lauded, not for being different, but by burdening society. It is now socially acceptable to burden society. Diversity and burden are two very different things.



I'm all for culture and race diversity.

I'm all for having as many kids as you want.

However, when you cannot provide for your children, you burden society.

What I am not for a broadening of the poor. Most of these hispanics are poor, and guess what? They will vote "Democrat", if they vote at all. And yes, Democrats will just ... well, you know the drill.

Also, guess what? Having 3 kids while poor, with no work or education-is-important ethic, dooms your kids to have the same ethic. This is important. While not exclusive to Hispanics**, many of the Hispanics born today do not have a work or education ethic, and they are doomed to die young and be a burden on what comes off as society nowadays.

I contend that this population boom just exacerbates a moral dilemma of developed countries: what do you do with people who rampantly burden society? The moral dilemma is that if you try to help them, you are encouraging the behavior generationally. If you do not help them, you allow your country to raise unhealthy and uneducated kids. The irony is that if you run out of funds while trying to help them you have essentially magnified both problems 100-fold.


America's response, for decades, has been to subsidize: with more education-as-a-daycare, with healthcare-as-a free food and lodging.

America has run out of funds.

My position, as it has always been, is that indiscriminate incentives for raising children and lax enforcement of immigration laws are to blame. We need to essentially destroy our liberal foundations to preserve our way of life. Create harsh laws to take away kids from parents who "abuse" their children, and vastly broaden the definition of "abuse". EXAMPLE: your kids are doing poorly in school while you are high on drugs? Take away the kids, take away your housing subsidy, and increase your penalty for further crimes.

There is no political will to break the cycle. None.

Therefore, America will continue on its course. Even if illegal immigration ends right now, we will still have a mass of poor people with no willingness to better themselves through education and hard work, because they do not even understand the concept. Will we devolve into a rigid class society, where the rich seal themselves off while the poor burden the middle class with the social ills of crime and sickness, and then eventually force them into the category of "poor" as well? I think that is the current course America is on.

Time to get rich while you still can.

**: Now, to you poor liberal sods who are still left here, this analysis is not exclusive to Hispanics. However, you can't sugar coat the fact that most of the kind of people I described above are Hispanics, and there is no one here who can rationally deny it.

[Being]

So we just give each family 40 acres and a mule and let them know they get nothing more...make do or die.

[agamemnus]

I wish we had 40 acres and a mule.

[Being]

I wish we had 40 acres and a mule.

Where're you going to get enough water to work 40 acres? Tounge-in-cheek I was saying we send them to their deaths.

[GGT]

Or debtor's prisons and lots of orphanages?

We already have a society of rich vs poor, and less of a middle. It's more stark now, almost like a regression to a previous century of poor immigrants and robber barons. Still, the largest (and growing) voting segment is the Senior Citizen.

What're you gonna do about them, when they won't vote to reduce their own "entitlements", but want to keep leeching off the youth....but they don't want those youths to have decent nutrition, day care, or education....?

[GGT]

An able work force means preparing our youth for the future. That means Education, and that means great schools with great teachers. What's being cut first as states are short? Anything related to youth. Day Care, supplemental nutrition, and.....Education.

I hate what the teachers unions are doing here, trying to save their retirement legacy entitlements at the expense of the childrens' futures. But I also hate how education and taxes has been catty-wampus in its construction. There has to be a better way than property taxes (since that's been tied to housing bubbles that burst).

There has to be a smarter way to encourage replacement populations, without keeping old geezers from using so many funds in the last years of their lives that they suck us dry, while we also nurture and elevate our younger generations.

[agamemnus]

So you say... take away money from the old geezers, and use it to feed the moral dilemma cycle...

I would rather keep the money with the old geezers, because you aren't perpetuating the moral dilemma cycle that way.

Yes, the old geezers siphoning off money is a problem.
Yes, the unions are a problem.

The unions are just trying to shelter themselves from the rich/poor divide, but what they are doing is just as unacceptable as feeding the moral dilemma cycle.


I don't want to understate the problem, but both the old geezers and the government unions are nothing compared to the mob of poor that's growing bigger day by day...

[GGT]

So you say... take away money from the old geezers, and use it to feed the moral dilemma cycle...

I would rather keep the money with the old geezers, because you aren't perpetuating the moral dilemma cycle that way.

Sorry, but it does perpetuate a moral dilemma cycle. Just because someone is elderly doesn't mean they garner more importance in funding, for being kept alive as long as possible. If anything it's the opposite----old folks had their chance and lived their lives, they don't have the same label of being the innocent "victim" as babies, children; youth in general is still a captive audience and very much reliant on society to help them BECOME something.

What do folks in their 80s and beyond "become", other than older and most likely feeble, demented, or sicker? Do we keep everyone alive longer just to feed the pharmaceutical and care-provider industries, that employ younger people?

Yes, the old geezers siphoning off money is a problem.
Yes, the unions are a problem.

The unions are just trying to shelter themselves from the rich/poor divide, but what they are doing is just as unacceptable as feeding the moral dilemma cycle.

So if I try to shelter myself from being poor, but I don't belong to a union, and I'm not an old geezer YET.....is that unacceptable in a moral sense? Right, tell me what to do with my BP stock shares.

I don't want to understate the problem, but both the old geezers and the government unions are nothing compared to the mob of poor that's growing bigger day by day...

I doubt there's a huge number of people who are consciously saying to themselves, as a matter of planning and strategy, "Hey, let's just find the best way to be poor, so we can be comfortable!"

[agamemnus]

youth in general is still a captive audience and very much reliant on society to help them BECOME something.

My point was that you can't educate everyone and force a certain ethic on them. Those who you don't will breed you out of your money.

What do folks in their 80s and beyond "become", other than older and most likely feeble, demented, or sicker? Do we keep everyone alive longer just to feed the pharmaceutical and care-provider industries, that employ younger people?

I don't really see it as an either/or.

So if I try to shelter myself from being poor, but I don't belong to a union, and I'm not an old geezer YET.....is that unacceptable in a moral sense? Right, tell me what to do with my BP stock shares.

No, it only applies to most unions.

I doubt there's a huge number of people who are consciously saying to themselves, as a matter of planning and strategy, "Hey, let's just find the best way to be poor, so we can be comfortable!"

No, no... this huge number of people is not trying to be comfortable. They don't have a concept of attainment of wealth (other than by stealing it, perhaps), nor of the value of education, nor of work ethic.

[Baxter]

Sorry, but it does perpetuate a moral dilemma cycle. Just because someone is elderly doesn't mean they garner more importance in funding, for being kept alive as long as possible. If anything it's the opposite----old folks had their chance and lived their lives,

paying for the education for someone elses grubby offspring

they don't have the same label of being the innocent "victim" as babies, children; youth in general is still a captive audience and very much reliant on society to help them BECOME something.

What do folks in their 80s and beyond "become", other than older and most likely feeble, demented, or sicker? Do we keep everyone alive longer just to feed the pharmaceutical and care-provider industries, that employ younger people?

Exactly, the old people who built the country have out lived there usefuleness, therefore they no longer have any value. Let's let them die alone in a hospital bed or even grind them up into Soylet Green.

We need the money they take to pay for the education of all the illegals in California whose parents don't pay any taxes. After all they MIGHT become SOMETHING. And when they drop out of school or are unemployable because they are stupid, the money can go to pay for Super Max prisons to house them...

[Loki]

Americans spend a large amount of money on education (among the highest in the world). The problem isn't the money spent on education (funding for it increases well above inflation most years, and it's far from the first budget item to get cut): it's the quality of the education system and the American culture.

[Being]

Americans spend a large amount of money on education (among the highest in the world). The problem isn't the money spent on education (funding for it increases well above inflation most years, and it's far from the first budget item to get cut): it's the quality of the education system and the American culture.

While the quality of education can be improved upon, it is far from being the most important problem.

[Loki]

Throwing money at it clearly has not helped. Just ask California. And have you seen the stats on the portion of high school math/science teachers that are actually qualified to teach those subjects?

[Being]

Throwing money at it clearly has not helped. Just ask California. And have you seen the stats on the portion of high school math/science teachers that are actually qualified to teach those subjects?

Even if we educate everyone to a higher standard, where will they work. recouping the money spent on education is largely dependant on the availability of jobs catering to the degree of education paid for.

[Loki]

Even if we educate everyone to a higher standard, where will they work. recouping the money spent on education is largely dependant on the availability of jobs catering to the degree of education paid for.

In a sufficiently flexible labor market, more skilled labor leads to more jobs for skilled labor.

[agamemnus]

In a sufficiently flexible labor market, more skilled labor leads to more jobs for skilled labor.

Correct! However, the immediate cost of continually doing this (educating and providing for everyone), while at the same time allowing everyone to have as many babies as they want regardless of their financial status, work ethic, or education ethic, will bankrupt the country. Not to mention that you just can't educate people who don't have the mindset that education is important and where that mindset isn't reinforced at home.

Besides, as I said, this eventually leads to either a Rio de Janeiro scenario or very possibly North Korea style socialism, because, in order to maintain social order, the government will become in charge of your life.

[GGT]

But that's what Americans DO. We throw money around. A whole lotta money. And money = power.

California just had primaries that threw a whole bunch of money around, as it finds its way to power.

[GGT]

aggie, your frustration is noted. However, unless you're prepared to do some eugenics program, I don't really know what you expect or want.

One main point of education is being able to lift one generation above the previous. Once upon a time, couples used to need a dozen kids to plow the fields, to feed the mouths...... when half would die from disease or during childbirth.

Education works hand-in-hand with sex and having babies. You may lament the gummint being in charge of "life", with all these babies being born to poor parents, and being on the public dole.

In my mind that just reinforces the value of public schools teaching life skills and sex ed.

[agamemnus]

Okay, I've just gotten out of bed, so I may be misreading Aggie... but did he say it's unacceptable that a school district is trying to educate its teachers about issues such as racism and poverty?

Putting the whole paragraph there might have made more sense, I guess:

The shifting mix has "changed our definition of diversity," said Ann Clark, chief academic officer of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district. The district, for example, used to put its teachers through training to overcome racial biases that usually cut along black-and-white lines. Now, the district focuses more on reaching kids who live in poverty or don't speak English at home. It has hired four full-time translators and started a program to educate teachers about poverty.

Poverty and not speaking English at home (while not being able to speak English outside the home) is not diversity, it is laziness.

And, speaking of poverty, just how much of a drain are these children on your society? I ask because I saw no numbers on how much they're leeching from your treasure-trove.

As for moral dilemmas, what takes precedence, the "education" of lazy hispanic parents through denying them welfare, or the well-being of the children of those lazy hispanics?

Like I said, it's a cycle. You cannot educate your way out of it; you must take many more children away into foster homes as one solution. And speaking somewhat to GGT's point, I think a 9 birth to 1 death rate, along with the fact that many if not most of the mothers were already born here, brings home the point that any sort of education will fail to contain the numbers game these joker mothers are playing.

aggie, your frustration is noted. However, unless you're prepared to do some eugenics program, I don't really know what you expect or want.

Like I said, massively expand foster homes for one.

One main point of education is being able to lift one generation above the previous. Once upon a time, couples used to need a dozen kids to plow the fields, to feed the mouths...... when half would die from disease or during childbirth.

But in this case I don't see a financial point in having so many children. I have argued before that financial subsidies to having children increase the birth rate to poor mothers unsustainably, but I will add to the point that it doesn't seem as much as a financial consideration (artificially constructed by subsidies, not pre-industrial era reality), but mentality. These mothers don't have any self-control or consideration for society when popping kids into the world.

Education works hand-in-hand with sex and having babies. You may lament the gummint being in charge of "life", with all these babies being born to poor parents, and being on the public dole. In my mind that just reinforces the value of public schools teaching life skills and sex ed.

Interesting solution. However, any sort of re-education education on when to have babies and how many appears to have failed.

Idea: Perhaps it might be a cost-effective solution to sextuple-down (get it?) on these government indoctrination programs. As someone who didn't have this "urge" in the first place though, I would not be happy that the government mandates these sorts of courses on me. But, if you make it voluntary, then no one will come. Perhaps you could tie the mandatory "don't have babies like rabbits" indoctrination course with bad grades, because there is (unfortuntely) a strong correlation with poor academic performance and how many babies you have.

[Aimless]

Putting the whole paragraph there might have made more sense, I guess:
Poverty and not speaking English at home (while not being able to speak English outside the home) is not diversity, it is laziness.

So you're upset because this person expressed herself in an appropriately tactful manner in an interview?

Like I said, it's a cycle. You cannot educate your way out of it; you must take many more children away into foster homes as one solution.

I'm confused again, but I presume the foster-homes are for the children of eg. drug-addicts, rather than for children of the average José...?

And speaking somewhat to GGT's point, I think a 9 birth to 1 death rate, along with the fact that many if not most of the mothers were already born here, brings home the point that any sort of education will fail to contain the numbers game these joker mothers are playing.

Okay, first of all, 9 births to every 1 death has to do with a lot of things including the relatively low age of that population. You know that, but you keep throwing it around because it sounds so disgusting at first, and I think that's dishonest of you.

Second, maybe you could get somewhere by strengthening the status of women in those populations.

[agamemnus]

So you're upset because this person expressed herself in an appropriately tactful manner in an interview?

I'm upset that they changed the definition of "diversity" to something it isn't, and that they seem to accept the glorification of being poor or being unable to speak English.

I'm confused again, but I presume the foster-homes are for the children of eg. drug-addicts, rather than for children of the average José...?

Yes... if the parents allow their children to do incredibly poorly in school, that would also be a contributing factor.

Okay, first of all, 9 births to every 1 death has to do with a lot of things including the relatively low age of that population. You know that, but you keep throwing it around because it sounds so disgusting at first, and I think that's dishonest of you.

Of course, they don't have 18 children for every mother. It's not "the low age of the population", it's that they are having kids very young, and many still in school and uneducated and poor. That's how a birth rate of 3:1 (obscenely high already) becomes a replacement rate of 9:1, but I think most people here know that math. (the 9:1 might come down as we run out of money to fund free basic health care). The 9:1 replacement rate would "disgust" many, no?

Second, maybe you could get somewhere by strengthening the status of women in those populations.

But again, that is where government indoctrination programs come in, no?

[Aimless]

I'm upset that they changed the definition of "diversity" to something it isn't, and that they seem to accept the glorification of being poor or being unable to speak English.

Where are you getting this stuff about the "glorification of being poor"? They're saying that they're taking measures to understand and to overcome the challenges posed by this diverse group of children. Ie. they are committed to reaching out to these children and realise that making progress will require an understanding of their situation, which may differ greatly from one child to the next. That's why it's a diverse group, a group that is characterised by diversity:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/diverse

Main Entry: di·verse
Pronunciation: \dī-ˈvərs, də-ˈ, ˈdī-ˌ\
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English divers, diverse, from Anglo-French & Latin; Anglo-French divers, from Latin diversus, from past participle of divertere
Date: 14th century
1 : differing from one another : unlike <people with diverse interests>
2 : composed of distinct or unlike elements or qualities <a diverse population>
synonyms see different
— di·verse·ly adverb
— di·verse·ness noun

Yes... if the parents allow their children to do incredibly poorly in school, that would also be a contributing factor.

Maybe you could help expand initiatives such as KIPP

But again, that is where government indoctrination programs come in, no?

What?



EDIT: Okay, I think I see where the problem lies. They haven't changed the definition of diversity, they have merely been forced to deal with things like poverty, language differences, etc, in addition to matters such as racism. In the past, that was the most important component of diversity for those educators, but now they have more to worry about.

[agamemnus]

Ha, and in the last sentence there you imply that they have changed the definition of diversity.

Well, it's fine if they teach teachers how to deal with these types of students, but more is implied when you widen the definition of "diversity".

When I think "diversity in school", I don't think whether you are poor or rich, smart or stupid, I think of your culture, color, race, and gender. They have these standard "celebrate diversity" programs/days all the time, and to diverge from "culture, color, race, and gender" to your sexual orientation, then your age difference in school (ie, 16 year olds in grade 6), and then finally whether you're stupid/smart or poor/rich is taking the "diversity" aspect too far and sending the wrong indoctrination message.

[GGT]

...These mothers don't have any self-control or consideration for society when popping kids into the world....

Right, all those immaculate conceptions. Damn women baby-poppers!

Idea: Perhaps it might be a cost-effective solution to sextuple-down (get it?) on these government indoctrination programs. As someone who didn't have this "urge" in the first place though, I would not be happy that the government mandates these sorts of courses on me. But, if you make it voluntary, then no one will come. Perhaps you could tie the mandatory "don't have babies like rabbits" indoctrination course with bad grades, because there is (unfortuntely) a strong correlation with poor academic performance and how many babies you have.

Takes two to tango. How about a free snip-snip for any male who's created three pregnancies? Voluntary, of course.

[']['ear]

What I am not for a broadening of the poor. Most of these hispanics are poor, and guess what? They will vote "Democrat", if they vote at all. And yes, Democrats will just ... well, you know the drill.

1) Why do I think this is the crux of your post? Oh noes, the little brown people have come, are having lots of babies, and (in conjunction with your Venezuela thread) will turn our country into a socialist nightmare!!1! Just an FYI: Latin Americans are overwhelmingly Catholic, and generally socially conservative. They were more likely to vote Republican on social issues until starting in 2006 when the racist wing of the GOP started demonizing Latinos in general as part of their immigration hysteria. Witness Arizona, where you are likely to be pulled over for looking Latin even if you're a fourth generation American.

2) "These people" alert!

Edit: over-population is clearly not the thrust of your thread, so we can address that elsewhere.

[Aimless]

Okay, I've just gotten out of bed, so I may be misreading Aggie... but did he say it's unacceptable that a school district is trying to educate its teachers about issues such as racism and poverty?

And, speaking of poverty, just how much of a drain are these children on your society? I ask because I saw no numbers on how much they're leeching from your treasure-trove.

As for moral dilemmas, what takes precedence, the "education" of lazy hispanic parents through denying them welfare, or the well-being of the children of those lazy hispanics?

[Aimless]

Uh, look, if anything they are recognising that "diversity" isn't limited to just race, gender and sexual orientation. Which is true I have no idea why you'd want to exclude some psychosocioeconomic (oof ) variables. It's not as if they're saying, "Let us make sure more kids become incapable of speaking English at their grade level."

[agamemnus]

It's not as if they're saying, "Let us make sure more kids become incapable of speaking English at their grade level."

They could possibly eventually imply that, though.

[Loki]

That's actually not true, Tear. Hispanics leaned Democrat by something like 10%. Obviously it's gotten worse since then due to the immigration debate. And you're likely to be pulled over for being a 20th generation black in NYC; might have something to do with knowing who's more likely to commit a given crime.

Edit: Bush got 40% of the Hispanic vote in 2000 and 44% in 2004, with the rise being attributed to an increase in the number of Hispanic Protestants.

http://pewhispanic.org/files/reports/48.pdf

[']['ear]

Still right in the middle. It's not like it's a black=poor=Democrat equation. But it could become so faced with enough ugly and misdirected xenophobia. It's quite clear that a large chunk of the xenophobic wing of the GOP is motivated by "we don't want your brown asses in the US" rather than "OMGz immigration is bad!" There aren't many protests about eastern European immigrants, even though we got a ton of those in the 90s.