Vianney Rubio, 5, of Santa Ana, Calif., holds a sign at a rally held to protest the arrests of Hispanic immigrant workers at Southern California airports, Aug. 23, 2002, in Santa Ana. Hispanics have surpassed blacks as the nation's largest minority group,
WASHINGTON, Jan. 21 — Hispanics have surpassed blacks as the nation’s largest minority group, the Census Bureau said Tuesday. The Latino population grew to 37 million in July 2001, up 4.7 percent from April 2000. The black population increased 2 percent during the same period, to 36.1 million.
THE ESTIMATES are the Census Bureau’s first statistics on race and ethnicity since results from the 2000 census were released two years ago.
Census Bureau demographer Roberto Ramirez said it has long been expected that Hispanics would someday surpass blacks because their birth and immigration rates are higher.
“And the trend shows it will clearly be increasing more in the future,” Ramirez said.
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