Of U.S. Children Under 5, Nearly Half Are Minorities

Maria Cruz teaches at an Alexandria preschool that serves Latinos. One girl in particular has made great strides in English, Cruz says. (File Photo By Larry Morris -- The Washington Post)

"Yes," she replied in English, "it's the same thing we have happening here."

In the next room, bilingual signs displayed the English and Spanish words for "computer," "rest time" and "snack." Across the hall, a group of children sang a song in Spanish.

Cruz said she has seen a huge difference in children's abilities from when they start the program and when they move on to kindergarten. She pointed at a 5-year-old girl from Mexico who was prattling about butterflies in English: Last year, Cruz said, "she came with zero English -- zero."

William O'Hare, a senior fellow at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, said he is not sure the country is prepared to provide the extra help that immigrants' children often need to become well-educated workers and the future supporters of retirement programs for a predominantly white elderly population. Some Americans, he said, will not welcome the news that minorities are nearly the majority among young children.

"Part of the people will see this and say, 'Gee, these kids are really our future parents and workers, and we need to take care of them,' " O'Hare said. "The other would say it is time to send them all home."

The census figures show that the number of Hispanic and Asian children younger than 5 grew by double-digit percentages since 2000. The number of black children grew more slowly. The number of non-Hispanic white children younger than 5 declined for two years this decade before increasing again.

The nation's Asian population growth still is dominated by immigration, the census report shows, but among Hispanics, births added more to the population growth than immigrants did this decade.

That means the growth trend among the youngest Hispanics "is only going to accelerate under almost any scenario you can think about, even without immigration," said demographer Jeffrey S. Passel of the Pew Hispanic Center. "As the children age, they are the ones who in 20 years will be having children."