According to an analysis by the Pew Research Center, the number of states in which Hispanic children make up 20 percent or more of the kindergarten class has increased from 8 percent in 2000, to 17 percent in 2012. The Hispanic population has jumped from 15 million to almost 54 million over the past 30 years, and now makes up 17 percent of the population. Latinos are now found far from the border states and the traditional cities where they’ve settled, like Miami, New York, and Chicago.
Matt Barreto and Gary M. Segura, founders of Latino Decisions, a political polling research firm that deals with Latino issues, have assembled a huge amount of data in their new book, Latino America: How America’s Most Dynamic Population is Poised to Transform the Politics of the Nation, that can help us understand what this growing population means to our political future.
Follow below the fold to learn what they have discovered.