HISPANIC INFANTS A MAJORITY LATINO BABY BOOM RIVALS WHITE BOOM OF `50S.

Byline: James Nash Staff Writer

More than half of all babies born in California are Latino, and the growing Latino birthrate will ripple through the state's schools, workplaces and political institutions in the next 20 years, according to a UCLA study released Wednesday.

In summer 2001, Latinos accounted for more than 50 percent of the California birthrate for the first time in the state's history, according to the study by the Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Los Angeles County and most of Southern California are ahead of the trend. In the fourth quarter of 2001, 63.4 percent of babies born in Los Angeles County and 53.9 percent in Ventura County were Latino, the UCLA researchers reported.

``This new Latino majority has learned how to walk and soon it will learn how to talk,'' said David E. Hayes-Bautista, director of the Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture. ``In 2006, the majority of children entering kindergarten will be Latino.''

The current Los Angeles County population is 44.6 percent Hispanic, 31.1 percent non-Hispanic white, 12.3 percent Asian and 9.7 percent black, according to U.S. Census Bureau statistics.

The UCLA numbers show the growth of California's Hispanic population as a home-grown phenomenon, with only 15 percent of the grow immigration.

Today's Latino infants will constitute a majority of high school students in 2014, of new workers entering the California work force in 2017, and of newly eligible voters in 2019, Hayes-Bautista said.

The trends point to the need to strengthen public schools and work force training so Latino youths enter the work force as educated, well-prepared contributors to the economy, said state Sen. Richard Alarcon, D-Van Nuys.

``You're basically saying that the future of California goes with the future of Latinos in California,'' Alarcon said. ``Society needs to provide them with the opportunity to increase their productivity, increase their skill levels in a way that benefits themselves and society at large.''

Hayes-Bautista said the experience of the predominately Anglo baby boom of the 1950s may foreshadow the current Latino baby boom. In the 1950s, most new parents hadn't graduated from high school and only 5 percent were college graduates, he said. Similarly, only about half of new Latino parents graduated from high school and fewe ``We can do this,'' Hayes-Bautista said. ``We've done it before.''

Although the Latino birthrate is roughly double that of whites, it is similar to the Anglo birthrate during the 1950s, Hayes-Bautista said.

Today's Latino youth in California differ from earlier generations, said Pepperdine University researcher Joel Kotkin. Most speak English and are steeped in American culture, he said.

At the same time, the growing number of U.S.-born Hispanics are influencing mainstream American culture, Kotkin said.

``The nature of the Latino experience itself is changing,'' he said.

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RISING LATINO BIRTHRATE

SOURCE: UCLA Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture

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