Demographics of North Carolina - Hispanics and Latinos

Hispanics and Latinos

Since 1990 the state has seen an increase in the number of Hispanics/Latinos. Once chiefly employed as migrant labor, Hispanic residents of the 1990s and early 21st century have been attracted to low-skilled jobs that are the first step on the economic ladder. As a result, growing numbers of Hispanic immigrants are settling in the state, mainly from Mexico, but also from Puerto Rico, and to a lesser extant other Caribbean and Central American countries. In Hispanic neighborhoods such as Eastland in Charlotte, Mexican Americans have become the ethnic majority. Newly formed barrios in the Raleigh area continue a transplanted Latin American culture. In 2005, the Pew Hispanic Center estimated that 300,000 — roughly 65 percent of North Carolina's Latino population — are illegal immigrants, based on the Census Bureau's population estimates. The population has grown from 77,726 in 1990 to 517,617 in 2005, an average increase of 13.5% per year.