Will Latinos Eventually Become A Majority in the U.S.?

[Bo]

Also, will Latinos remain in the majority in the long run if they ever become a majority?

[Bo]

Maybe in the 2840 census they will become a majority, and they will cease to be in the 3450 census due to heavy Martian immigration.

haha. But I was asking a serious question. Latinos were 13% of the population in 2000, are about 15% now, and are projected to be 30% in 2050. It's possible that they eventually become a majority if there remains enough immigration from Latin America after 2050, which I'm not too sure about as Latin America will probably be much more developed than it is now.

[Bo]

"Latinos" will be counted as whites anytime before that happens. 

I know that many Latinos self-identify as white but could you please answer the question in the context I asked it in?

[Bo]

As asked, no, not possible.  If you're asking will hispanics ever make up a majority of white folk, well no, that isn't going to happen either.  At least not anytime in the next 100 years.

I'm asking if Latinos will become a majority (as in 50.01% or more) of the U.S. population at anytime in the future.

[Bo]

I don't think the question is well-posed. If the question is, would, at some point, most Americans have at least one ancestor coming from Latin America, then the answer is "not impossible". However, most of those "latinos" would have most of their ancestors hailing from other parts of the world. If the quesion is, would there, at some point, be a situation in which most of US citizens self-identify as something called "latinos", the answer is "extraordinarily unlikely".

Immigrants from Latin America assimilate pretty fast and are not an obvious homogenous racial group. The visible subgroup are the recent migrants or else those with particular assimilation difficulties, but they are not really indicative of the long-term dynamics. A third-generation Latino is as much a latino as a third-generation Italian is an Italian and a third-generation Irish is an Irish: all of them are infinitely more American, then anything else. Of course, as long as there some advantages to being identified as a Latino, any Jack Cohen, whose grandmother grew up in Mexico City will make sure to claim that ancestry. Trust me, when it's my daughter's turn to go to grad, school she will definitely claim to be both Latino and Jewish to the appropriate funding sources - even though, to be sure, neither myself nor my wife are really either. So what?

So you're ethnically Jewish, but you're not very religious? I get your point, BTW.

[Bo]

This reminds me of this guy I used to work with. He's Hispanic and has a very Hispanic last name (though it's common enough so it's not seen as ethnic anymore.) And he lives in a relatively high (for Minnesota) Hispanic area. But his roommates are all white. And he's from the suburbs. Very middle class as it gets. And I doubt he knows much Spanish. Yet he's still another Hispanic in that area on the census. Kind of amusing.

Does he look Caucasian? Or does he look more like a Native-American?

[Bo]

That's interesting. This one guy I know is half-Cuban, but he looks completely white. His last name suggested he was Greek or Spanish (before I asked him what his ethnicity was). If you're wondering, the other half of his family originally came from Western Europe.

[Bo]

If you remember, at the turn of the last century, Italian was considered a subcategory to white.  By now they have been absorbed into the "white" demographic fully.  The same will happen to hispanics of the next century.

Still, one could argue that since many Latinos look like Native Americans (unlike Italians), it will be harder for those Latinos to be considered "white."

[Bo]

If you remember, at the turn of the last century, Italian was considered a subcategory to white.  By now they have been absorbed into the "white" demographic fully.  The same will happen to hispanics of the next century.

Still, one could argue that since many Latinos look like Native Americans (unlike Italians), it will be harder for those Latinos to be considered "white."

Italians and Latinos to me look alike.

Italians and White Latinos, Yes. But I was talking about Italian and Native American Latinos (based on appearance).