Asians and Latinos: Contrasts in Population Growth

"The U.S. immigration picture is changing fast: Migration from Latin America, and especially Mexico, is falling and has been overtaken by immigration from Asia," reports Ben Casselman, citing a report released at the end of June by the Pew Research Center.

The Latino population is growing quickly, "but that growth isn’t due to immigration and hasn’t been for more than a decade. In 2013, according to the Pew Research Center, immigration accounted for just 22 percent of Latino population growth. The rest was due to 'natural increase' (births minus deaths). For Asians, the numbers are nearly reversed: 61 percent of growth in the U.S. Asian and Asian-American population is due to immigration."

That means more and more of the U.S. Latino population was born in the United States, and that, according to Casselman, has implications for Latino culture and the American economy: "Political commentary often treats the issues of immigration and Hispanic ethnicity as two sides of the same coin. But U.S. Latinos are looking more and more like other Americans."