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What are we going to do once we become the majority?

Francisco Miraval

According to recent demographic studies, sometime before the year 2050 Latinos will be the largest minority in the country. However, years before that, Latinos will the majority of the population in several states. What are we going to do once we become the majority?

And what kind of education are we providing to our children to prepare them for the day when they will assume their new responsibilities in the workforce and so many other areas?

Last week, the Colorado Children’s Campaign (CCC) published a report saying than in less than ten years most of those under 18 in Colorado will be children of Latino immigrants or children of “persons of color.” In addition, almost 90 percent of Latino children were born in the United States.

The same report analyzes not only the rapid growth in the number of children of Latino immigrants in Colorado, but also the deep social, economic, educational, and labor-related changes that growth is already generating. This phenomenon is not restricted to Colorado, but it is already happening in several other states and it will happen in the whole country in the next few decades.

It is worth noting that children of immigrants are adapting to the life in the United States. Almost all of those parents (98 percent) arrived to the country more than five years ago. And 80 percent of their children speak English without difficulties.

However, those immigrant parents and their American children (who are, in fact, the future of the workforce in this country) face numerous challenges. For example, in Colorado almost one third of children of immigrants live in poverty, while only 15 percent of children of non-immigrants face that same problem.

According to CCC, that disparity in the standard of living between immigrant and non-immigrant families is the second largest in the country, after Nebraska.

In addition, due to family-income limitations, many children of immigrant parents begin attending school when they are e 6 years old. By that time, they already lost several years of education and it will be very difficult, if not impossible, to recover from such academic disadvantage.

Those children will grow up and one day. in the not so distant future, they will discover they are the majority of the new workforce and the new voters. What are they going to do then?

Let us review the following example. Recent archaeological excavations at Faynan, Jordan, revealed that during the time of the persecutions against Christians by the Roman Empire, thousands of Christian were sent to the copper mines in Faynan to work there as prisoners until their death.

Then, in the fourth century, the Empire became Christian and the persecutions stopped. Then, something happened. According to new archaeological evidence, Christians began to send members of rival groups to work as prisoners in the same mines where Christians were previously punished.

For that reason, I ask again, what are we, Hispanics, going to do once we become the majority? I hope we will act ethically and sanely.

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