A CHANGING NATION AS THE U.S. POPULATION NEARS 300, A LOOK AT HOW IT HAS CHANGED SINCE FIRST HITTING 100 MILLION IN 1915, AND 200 MILLION IN 1967.

Byline: BETH BARRETT Staff Writer

Somewhere in Los Angeles at 4:46 a.m. Tuesday, a baby boy with Mexican parents is expected to become the 300 millionth person in the United States.

Likely to be christened Angel or Jose, the newborn will mark a population milestone and reflect the dramatic changes that have reshaped the region and the country.

Today, a growing portion of the U.S. population is Latino, Los Angeles has emerged as a key population center, there are more births than new immigrants, and baby boys outnumber girls.

``That 300 millionth baby boy is symbolic of where America is going in the 21st century melting pot,'' said William Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., who predicted the profile of resident number 300 million.

U.S. Census experts have extrapolated the exact time the U.S. will hit the milestone based on estimates that the U.S. population adds one person every 11 seconds.

That means one birth every seven seconds, one death every 13 seconds and one immigrant entering the country every 31 seconds.

And the growth has been accelerating since America hit the 100 million mark in 1915.

It took 52 years -- until 1967 -- for the population to add another 100 million residents. But it's taken just 39 years since then to add 100 million more.

And the demographic changes have been just as rapid. Experts say in some fundamental ways the country is cycling back to its origins.

``We're going back to our melting-pot roots,'' Frey said. ``We're entering a stage that's more like the 1915 100 million era than the 1967 200 million era.''

In 1915, immigrants made up 15 percent of the U.S. population. That dropped to 5 percent in 1967 with a more insular post-World War II white, middle-class population.

Today, immigrants have increased to 12 percent of the population.

In 1915, however, U.S. immigrants mostly came from Germany; today they primarily come from Mexico.

In the San Fernando Valley, Latinos made up 46.1 percent of the population two years ago.

Daniel Blake, director of the San Fernando Valley Economic Research Center at CSUN, said that with the shift has come an infusion of new cultural experiences.

``Throughout the Valley you get authentic Latino places here, cultural events are celebrated ... (ethnic) supermarkets are spreading through the Valley and becoming anchor stores,'' he said.

But it's not just the faces and culture of Americans that are changing.

Since 1915, the cost of a first-class stamp has soared from 2 to 39 cents; life expectancy has risen from just over 54 years to nearly 78; and silent movies have given way to iPods.

There were 2.9 million people in all of California in 1915 -- just double the 1.5 million who live in the San Fernando Valley today.

The city of Los Angeles had 447,000 people -- a fraction of the 4 million today -- and it had just annexed nearly 170 square miles of the San Fernando Valley, including Van Nuys, in anticipation of a land boom fueled with water from the Owens Valley.

A four-room furnished apartment in Los Angeles went for $30 a month, and an hour-long music lesson cost a buck.

In the Capitol, the House of Representatives rejected giving women the vote, while scientists for the first time photographed Pluto -- and foreshadowed this year's news by not recognizing it as a planet.

A half-century later -- at the 200 million mark in 1967 -- the nation was in the midst of the Vietnam War.

It was the year three Apollo 1 astronauts were killed in a launchpad fire, Thurgood Marshall became the first African-American justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, and the Beatles released ``Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.''

Driven by the aerospace industry and the opportunity for suburban homeownership, the Valley's population neared 965,000, Los Angeles's population soared to 2.7 million and Los Angeles County's hit 6.9 million.

Five-bedroom homes in the western Valley were selling for $38,000. Lovebirds could watch ``The Dirty Dozen'' at Valley drive-ins from new T-Birds costing $3,860, while kids ate 49-cent TV dinners and watched the Walt Disney show and ``Gentle Ben.''

In 1967, the Golden State topped 19 million people.

Now, as the nation hits the 300 million mark, it has emerged as the world's sole superpower but faces new threats from terrorism.

California's population has nearly doubled to 37.1 million people and L.A. County's has topped 10 million.

The median home price stands at $595,000 -- more than 10 times the cost of a Valley home in 1967.

SUVs, including the Hummer H2, cell phones, iPods and fascination with reality shows like ``American Idol'' increasingly define the pop culture landscape.

Americans largely have moved off the farm and are facing a period of soul searching, both sobering and exhilarating.

``We work in front of a blue screen,'' said James David Ballard, a CSUN associate professor of sociology. ``The main thing we work on is the accumulation of money and fun.

``We consume a whole different kind of entertainment than our parents did in 1967: We text message, they dialed a phone; we have Wikipedia, they had an encyclopedia; we listen to iPods, they had 45s and 33s, or 8-tracks.

``We've seen a resurgence in faith in some people, but it's more fundamentalist.''

But we also may be more cynical than our parents and ancestors as the possibilities for the future don't necessarily seem so endless.

``There's a new realism that your kids may not be richer, better off, more educated than you are,'' Ballard said.

beth.barrett(at)dailynews.com

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CAPTION(S):

photo, 2 boxes

Photo:

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Box:

(1) A Changing Nation

Warren Huskey/Staff Artist

(2) Population facts

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

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