20 Percent of Rhode Island is Now Minorities
Chip Young, Senior Editor
20 Percent of Rhode Island is Now Minorities
The most publicized area of minority growth was in the Hispanic community. The Latino population in Rhode Island has grown by 43.9 percent, and now makes up 12.4 percent of the state’s population.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTNot that a Latino heritage is now dominant. Figures from 2007 show that people who claimed Italian ancestry number 19 percent, the same amount who identified themselves as of Irish stock. Seventeen percent were of French-Canadian descent, and those with British ancestry were at 12 pecent, rivaling the current Hispanic census figure.
The Numbers Grow
With the Hispanic influx, and to a lesser extent, a large uptick in the Asian community (up 28.7 percent and now representing 2.9 percent of Rhode Islanders) come questions about their impact upon the state as they continue a rapid rise. The growing Hispanic community is continuing the trend seen in the 2000 census. From 1990 to 2000, the number of Hispanics nearly doubled, from 45,752 to 90,829, becoming nine percent of the state’s total population at the time.
John Logan, a professor of sociology at Brown University and census analyst, addressed the results showing the growth of minority populations, saying “The White and African-American communities are getting older, they are graying, and not having children, and there are few whites or African-Americans moving in to replace them. That’s very true of children in the school-age and pre-kindergarten age. The new minorities in the Hispanic and Asian communities are younger, and the real dynamic part of the population. These new minorities are changing the racial composition statewide.”
Economic and Educational Impacts
That will have implications both economically and in the area of education, Logan believes. “This rise will have an impact on the economy and the labor force, and our ability to train them to a level of (employable) skill. But this isn’t a burden. Rather, it is an asset for the state. The challenge is to make the most of it.”
The percentage of White residents dropped by 3.9 percent, but that demographic still makes up the large majority of Rhode Islanders at 81.4 percent. The Black community is still growing overall, with by 28.3 percent increase and now making up 5.7 percent of the state’s total population, but is also in flux, according to Logan.
Evolving Communities
“One thing I have noticed is that the once highly-segregated African-American community in Providence is becoming less segregated, in fact more so than in other cities. Whereas the Hispanic community is becoming more segregated,” the Brown professor observed. “The Hispanics are more racially segregated, and they are segregated in neighborhoods that have less resources to support them. It surprises me, and I don’t understand why that’s true, but it is clear from the data that’s the case. They will need more support.”
Nellie Gorbea, executive director of HousingWorks RI, and the former president of the Rhode Island Latino Political Action Committee, is well aware of the growth in the Hispanic community, and sees its influence rippling throughout the state, even politically, above and beyond the election of the Providence’s first Hispanic mayor, Angel Taveras.
"One of the things I was most pleased to see was that is was the Latino community that helped keep the 2nd Congressional district there,” she said, alluding to the possibility that census numbers might have resulted in Rhode island losing one of its two seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Good for Rhode Island
“I think it is an exciting opportunity for the state,” Gorbea enthused. “Someone was saying the other day (at a meeting of Hispanic community leaders), ‘What is good for the Latino community is good for the state.’ I think that is true.”
As to Logan’s assessment of where the Hispanic community is settling down, Gorbea says, “Anecdotally, what I have seen is a migration from the cities to the suburbs. When I arrived in Rhode Island in the 1990s, it was rare to hear Spanish spoken outside Providence. Now you hear it at the mall, at the airport.”
Shifting Sands
Gorbea is aware of the tightly woven pockets of Hispanics in Providence, but is not ready to make any firm predictions about that situation standing pat over the long term.
“It will take more time to evaluate,” said the Gorbea. “You have to watch it evolve. After all, there used to be a lot of French-speaking Canadians in Woonsocket.”
Facing a Challenge
The younger additions to the workforce and the need for education, training and placement in jobs was the major theme of a state Senate economic summit held this week at the Community College of Rhode Island, without going so far as to identify any specific group of residents.
But the numbers don’t lie, and that effort will become more important as the demographics shift down age-wise through new numbers of minorities adding to the population.
As Brown’s Logan points out, it can be an asset, and most surely will be a challenge.
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