Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
At the level of metropolitan areas, Los Angeles is the leading Hispanic city of
the United States, with 5 million people; but the Hispanic presence is proportionally
greater in Miami. Many cities in the West exceed the national average (see
Figure 4.15).
Along with Native Americans and African-Americans, populations of Hispanic
origin are particularly affected by poverty. Average income per capita within the
population of Hispanic origin was only 55% of the national average in 1999, and
over 22% of the population lives below the poverty threshold (national average
12%). Residential segregation is common, but it is still lower than for black
Americans. The Massey and Denton dissimilarity index calculated for Hispanics for
the 208,669 block groups in the country in the 2000 census was 0.547, compared
with 0.687 for blacks. Despite this social dimension, there does not exist a Hispanic
“issue” as there does a Native American or black “issue”. Controversy surrounding
the “Hispanic minority” continues to increase, however, due to the question of
language which reinforces the debate on the issue of integration in the country, as
well as on the complicated topic of illegal immigration.
4.5. Geography of the population of Asian origin
Just like Hispanics, the population of Asian origin is the result of recent
immigration as they arrived, for the most part, after 1950. More than 10.1 million
people residing in the United States claimed Asian origins in the 2000 census,
representing 3.6% of the total population (see Figure 4.16). Of the five major pan-
ethnic categories that are meant to reflect the diversity of the US population in the
census, the “Asian community” is the most heterogenous, ranging from descendants
of the Chinese immigrants who went to California to try their luck during the 1848
Gold Rush, to Japanese immigrants who went to Hawaii before the establishment of
the American protectorate in 1898, to Indian computer scientists from Bangalore
recently arrived on an H1-B visa. Although the “Asian” category was introduced in
the 1880 census, their numbers in the US population were long limited by laws
prohibiting their entry into the United States in the late nineteenth century, with the
exception of Filipinos.
4
The US military engagement in the Pacific during the Cold
War led to the lifting of restrictions. There were just under one million residents of
Asian origin in 1960 (0.5% of the total population), 3.5 million in 1980 (1.5% of the
total population), and over 10 million in 2000.
4
. Due to the protectorate imposed by the US on the archipelago between 1899 and 1942.
