Someone once said, ''The more things change, the more they stay the same.'' With that in mind, I note that the Latino community, particularly in Allentown, has been the source of discussion, concern, information and misperceptions for many years. However, a statistical review reveals a community with sharp contrasts and vivid remnants of the recent past.
Allentown's Latino population makes up more than 30 percent of the city's nearly 106,000 residents with projections as high as 50 percent by 2020. According to the U.S. Census, that number was 4.5 percent in 1980, 14.4 percent in 1990 and 24.2 percent in 2000. This influx has firmly positioned Allentown as Pennsylvania's third largest city while drastically changing the mainly white European demography to a predominantly Latino composition.
Nearly 70 percent of the Latino community is of Puerto Rican heritage, while Dominicans, Mexicans and South and Central Americans, among others, comprise the rest. This diverse community, with origins from the mountains of Peru, the valleys of Colombia, the shores of the Yucatan and the barrios of Newark, N.J., may share a common language of Imperial Spain, but it is obvious this wide range of life experiences presents a kaleidoscope of a Latino community that many in the Lehigh Valley mistakenly perceive as a monolithic, homogenous group. READ FULL STORY
Comments