Interesting Facts about Diverse Groups in America

The Latinx American Demographic

The Latinx American population is among the fastest-growing in the United States. They make up more than 17% of the U.S. population. By 2050, Latinx Americans are projected to make up a whopping 30% of the populace.

As the Latinx community expands, Latinx Americans are making headway in areas such as business. The census reports that Latinx-owned businesses grew 43.6% between 2002 and 2007. While Latinx Americans are advancing as entrepreneurs, they face challenges in education. Just 62.2% of Latinx Americans had graduated from high school in 2010, compared to 85% of Americans overall. Latinx people are also more likely to live below the poverty threshold than the general population.

Interesting Facts About Black Americans

For years, Black Americans were the nation’s largest racial-ethnic minority group. Today, Latinx Americans have outpaced Black Americans in population growth, but Black Americans continue to influence U.S. culture in important ways. Despite this, misconceptions about Black Americans persist. Census data helps to clear up some of the longstanding negative stereotypes about Black Americans.

For example, Black businesses are booming, Black Americans have a long tradition of military service, with Black veterans amounting to more than two million in 2010. Moreover, Black Americans graduate from high school at about the same rate as White Americans do overall. In places such as New York City, Black immigrants lead immigrants from other racial-ethnic minority groups in earning high school diplomas.

While Black Americans have long been associated with urban centers in the East and Midwest, census data reveals that Black Americans have relocated to the South in such large numbers that most Black people in America live in the former Confederacy.

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Interesting Facts About Asian Americans

By Nadra Kareem Nittle

Statistics About Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders

Asian Americans make up more than 5% of the population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Although this is a small slice of the overall American population, Asian Americans constitute one of the fastest-growing groups in the country.

The Asian American population is a diverse one. Most Asian Americans have Chinese ancestry, followed by Filipino, Indian, Vietnamese, Korean, and Japanese. Considered collectively, Asian Americans stand out as a racial-ethnic minority group that has excelled beyond the mainstream in educational attainment and socioeconomic status.

Asian Americans have higher household incomes than Americans generally. They also have higher rates of educational attainment. But not all Asian groups are well off.

Southeast Asian people and Pacific Islanders suffer from much higher rates of poverty than the Asian American population overall does and lower levels of educational attainment. The takeaway from census statistics about Asian Americans is to remember that this is an eclectic group.

Spotlight on the Native American Population

Thanks to movies such as "Last of the Mohicans," there’s the idea that Native Americans no longer exist in the United States. While the American Indian population isn’t exceptionally large, there are several million Native Americans in the U.S., 1.2% of the nation’s total.

Nearly half of these Native Americans identify as multiracial. Most American Indians identify as Cherokee followed by Navajo, Choctaw, Mexican American Indian, Chippewa, Sioux, Apache, and Blackfeet. Between 2000 and 2010, the Native American population grew by 26.7%, or 1.1 million.

Most American Indians live in the following states: California, Oklahoma, Arizona, Texas, New York, New Mexico, Washington, North Carolina, Florida, Michigan, Alaska, Oregon, Colorado, Minnesota, and Illinois. Like other underrepresented groups, Native Americans are succeeding as entrepreneurs, with Native American businesses growing by 17.7% from 2002 to 2007.