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If we look at the young Latinos, the numbers are more impressive than those of the Latin community in general. In a recent study, the Hispanic Center (PEW) published on May 31st, 2009, concluded that Hispanics under 18 years of age represent 22% of the Hispanic population, more than one for every five of the population in the United States.

These numbers reflect a significant increase since 1980 when the same demographic group represented just 9%.

Pew also affirms that in the same manner in which the numbers changed, the demographic characteristics also changed.

There are about 16 million Hispanic children and youngsters under 18 years of age in the United States, 52% of this group are part of a “second generation” according to PEW in its study “Hispanic children: The development of the second generation, based on the census bureau statistics

These numbers show that the children belong to at least one parent born outside the United States, typically from immigrants that came from Mexico, Central America, Latin America, or the Caribbean during the immigration wave of 1980.

About 11% of Latin children are “first generation”, born in a foreign country, and 37% of the Latin children are “third generation or greater”, born of Hispanic parents born in the United States. These changes, the PEW study shows, are important because the social, economic, and demographic characteristics of the Latin children “vary substantially according to the status of the generational background”.

According to the study, two-thirds of the 1.7 million Latin children born outside the United States are illegal immigrants while none of the 6 million children that belong to the third generation are, since they were born in the country where their parents were born, and both are American Citizens.

Among the children that belong to the second generation, almost 4 out of 10 have at least one legal immigrant parent and live in families with mixed immigration status.

The projections of the census bureau indicate that toward the year 2025, almost three of each ten children in this country will have Latin ethnic origin.

During the last two decades, the numbers show, the Latin community had an impressive rate of growth because of births and new immigration.

Larry D’Arrigo

LOS ANGELES TIMES: July 16, 2021
By: Arcelia Serrano

For the United Nations Organization, youth is a person who is between 15 and 24 years old; In the United States this same definition has been taken, but not in the Mexican case; In Mexico, young people are those between the ages of 12 and 29.

Be that as it may, young people are a powerful group whose main advantage is precisely their young age and enough energy to join the working life, in companies existing ones or forming their own, or in an endless number of projects thanks to the new technologies. Without any fear, it can be said that young people are the future of the country and young Latinos are the future of the United States.

In the United States, there are currently 42 million young people (between 15 and 24 years old), and they represent 13% of the total population of the country. Just for reference, adults aged 60 and over represent 24% of the population, that is, they are almost double the young population. Both in the white population, as well as among Afro-Americans and Asians, only 1 in 10 are young, but among Latinos, the proportion is 2 out of 10.

Thus, of the total number of young people in the country, a quarter is of Latino origin. Just 5 years ago these young people represented less than a fifth of the total. This means that their number has been increasing. But not because of migration but because the number of Americans who have Latino roots has increased, that is, they are children, grandchildren, or great-grandchildren of Latino immigrants

Among these young Latinos, 84% are born in the United States, only 3% are naturalized, 6% have Legal Permanent Residence and 7% do not have documents, but of the latter who do not have documents, 6 out of 10 arrived in the US. In the US being under 16 years of age, that is, they fall into the category of Dreamers.

To date, 6 out of 10 young people of Latino origin have completed High School or more, and among them, 24% have a college degree and 10% have a bachelor’s degree. That is, they have been prepared or are in the process.

At least half of Latino youth are already working in activities as varied as business administration, financial occupations, administrative support, and even agriculture, construction, or transportation of people. And of those who work, at least a third continue studying, that is, they combine working life with education. Latino youth are ending the stigma that has accompanied the community for so long and according to which Latinos occupy only low-skilled and low-paying positions.

On the other hand, there are non-Hispanic whites, among whom the prevalence and increased aging, currently close to a third of whites are 60 or older, while among Latinos only a tenth are that age. The average age among whites is 43 years, among African Americans, it is 37 years, among Asians it is 38, while among Latinos it is 31 years.

These data are a sample of why we affirm that the United States has a great wealth and a great treasure in Latino youth. Because they are the ones who in the coming years will be fully incorporated into working life, many of them work and pay taxes, benefiting the American economy, and on whom, without a doubt, much of the weight will fall to sustain the pension system, increasingly demanding resources in the US.

So beyond the divisive discourses, which still prevail in some areas of the country, it is important to recognize that Latino youth contribute and will contribute even more so that the United States continues to be the economy most important in the world.

Larry D’Arrigo