Latinos are shaping state’s future
Despite recent reports that the rate of Latino population growth in the United States has begun to slow, there’s no denying our community has already become a major economic and political force in Arizona and nationwide.
For instance, U.S. Hispanics spent more than $1.5 trillion on consumer goods and services in 2015, while accounting for about $42 billion in consumer spending this year in Arizona.
On the political front, more Latinos are running for public office in our state (and getting elected), a record number are registered to vote in Arizona and nationwide, and for the first time in more than 20 years, the outcome of the presidential and U.S. senate race here may be toss-ups — in part because of Latino voter growth.
While a great deal of this information may be news to most Arizonans, the Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce has been documenting these trends for the past 20 years in a publication called DATOS: The State of Arizona’s Hispanic Market. This year’s DATOS report, the single most comprehensive collection of research about the state’s Hispanic community, will be released Tuesday at our annual breakfast conference at the Arizona Biltmore.
To help drive home the message about our community’s impact, this year’s keynote speakers are Sol Trujillo, a nationally renowned business investor, and Henry Cisneros, U.S. secretary of housing under President Bill Clinton. We invited them to expand on a talk-track they’ve been delivering across the country on what they see as the lack of attention given “on the campaign trail or in the media … about Latinos and economic growth.”
Writing in a recent Wall Street Journal article, Cisneros and Trujillo said, “The candidates and reporters have a hard time getting past immigration.” They’re right, and it needs to stop. While Arizona has long been cast as “ground zero” by the national press in the debate over immigration, few in the general public ever get to hear about the enormous year-round role our community is playing in the economy and virtually every other aspect of American society.
In lieu of the destructive and inaccurate rhetoric being spewed on the campaign trail about Latinos and our immigrant brothers and sisters, here are a few facts Arizonans should know.
In the past 25 years, Arizona’s Latino population has tripled from about 700,000 to about 2.2 million, which means we now make up one-third of the state’s population — and by most estimates, we will be the majority of Arizonans by 2040-2045.
On the business front, more Latinos are moving up in the ranks at major corporations and non-profits. Among small businesses, the number of Hispanic-owned firms in Arizona, according to the U.S. Census, has more than doubled from 52,000 to 123,000 between 2007 and 2015 (accounting for a $10 billion annual impact on our economy).
And Hispanic women are leading the way. Statewide, Latinas now own a majority stake in more than 50 percent of all Hispanic-owned businesses.
You can expect these trends to continue. If you want a window into the makeup of the state’s future, consider that the median age for Arizona Hispanics is 25 — versus 41 for non-Hispanics — and we make up nearly 50 percent of the state’s K-12 students.
What then-Chamber President Sandra Ferniza and board member Gema Duarte Luna, who co-founded our DATOS report, clearly understood 20 years ago — and what we at the Hispanic Chamber still understand today — is that it is easier to convince policymakers and business leaders how important it is to have Latinos at the table as we plan our state’s future if we are armed with the facts.
And what the facts have been telling us for years is that Latinos, far beyond immigration, will be shaping Arizona’s destiny for years to come.
Gonzalo A. de la Melena Jr. is president and CEO of the Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. Email him at gonzalo@azhcc.com; follow on Twitter, @azhcc.