New census data shows racial, ethnic growth on LI
Data shows half of Nassau residents between the ages of 25 and 29 are Hispanic or non-white, marking decline of Long Island's white majority
BY KATIE THOMAS
Newsday Staff Writer
August 21, 2006
For a peek into Long Island's future, take a look at someone in his late 20s.
In Nassau County, for the first time in modern history, chances are less than 50 percent that the person will be white. According to new U.S. Census data released last week, non-Hispanic whites make up 49.5 percent of Nassau residents aged 25 to 29.
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People in their late 20s, it turns out, are on the cutting edge of a national trend toward racial and ethnic diversification, a pronounced phenomenon on Long Island. In Suffolk, whites make up 63 percent of the age group -- this on an island that, overall, is still 73 percent white.
Some say the main cause is immigration. More newcomers are moving directly to suburbs, where ethnic communities are now well-established.
"The parts of the region that appear to have grown the most in terms of foreign-born residents are the older suburban counties," said Chris Jones, vice president for research at the Regional Plan Association, a Manhattan-based group. "People in their 20s are more likely to come here for work than someone in their 40s and 50s."
Jose Carvajal is one of those people. Carvajal, 28, fell in love with New York City when he watched TV in his native El Salvador. But when he immigrated to the United States in 2000, he chose Long Island because he already had friends there. He now lives in Westbury with his wife and their 1-year-old daughter.
"I like the beach, I like the malls, I like it for the jobs," said Carvajal, a maintenance worker.
People in their late 20s and early 30s are more likely to have been born in another country than any other age group on Long Island, according to the Census data. Twenty-eight percent of 25- to 34-year-olds were born in a foreign country, compared to 16 percent of Long Islanders as a whole.
At the same time, Long Island has seen a decline in the number of white residents. The island was home to 62,000 fewer whites in 2005, compared with 2000, a 3 percent decrease. In the same period, the number of Hispanics grew to 57,000, a 20 percent increase. Blacks and Asians have also grown in number. While the most recent data don't show why whites are leaving, some say the rising cost of living, especially home prices, is driving middle-class whites out of the region.
Many native Long Islanders -- the majority of them white -- leave for college and don't come back, said Pearl Kamer, chief economist for the Long Island Association, a business group. "They look at housing and the cost of living on Long Island and they probably make their career elsewhere," she said.
Some demographers also point to the "baby bust" -- the time in the 1970s and 80s when fewer babies were born in the United States.
Patrick Young, chairman of the Long Island Immigrant Alliance, said some of the Hispanics in this age group are also second-generation Central Americans, many of whose parents fled civil war in the 1980s. "You're really seeing the confluence of two different groups," he said.
While twentysomethings are among the most racially diverse age groups, young children are even more racially and ethnically diverse nationwide. Children under 5 years old are 55 percent white in the United States, compared to 60 percent white among people aged 25 to 29.
However, the same is not true for Long Island. The young children, as a group, are far less diverse than people in their 20s. Whites make up 60 percent of children under 5, and 68 percent of children ages 5 to 9.
Experts say this could be because of the high cost of living and few housing options.
"It's not mom and dad and the kids coming over," said Young. "It's very typically young men coming to the United States and arriving on their own."
Long Islanders, like New Yorkers as a whole, tend to marry later than those in the rest of the country. By age 30, 41 percent of Americans are married, according to the Census data. On Long Island, only 30 percent have wed by age 30.
This slice of the population offers a peek into the future of Long Island and the nation, many say. As people in their 20s grow older, they are likely to stay on the island, get married and have children. At the same time, new young people will move in, further diversifying the region.
"What we are seeing with the under-40 population -- and even more so with the under-30 population -- is going to be the face of America when we look down the road not too far," said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution.
That change is likely to have a mixed impact. On the one hand, immigrants traditionally reinvigorate depressed neighborhoods and work hard to attain middle-class status. But at the same time, Kamer said, Long Islanders should expect to see a greater demand for services, such as English as a Second Language classes and vocational training.
Although the new faces will undoubtedly transform Long Island's cultural life, Young points out that immigrants are equally changed by their new environment. "They become Americans, and Americans become a little like them," he said.
Staff writer T.W. Farnam contributed to this story.
Topic: Whites on LI are dwindling! (Read 4984 times)