Welcome to a more diverse Utah.
Ethnic minorities now make up about 10 percent of Utah's population — a population that was the fourth-fastest-growing in the nation during the past decade, according to results of the 2000 Census released Wednesday.
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"It's not going to be like 'Pleasantville' anymore," said James Yapias of the Utah Office of Hispanic Affairs. "Diversity is a good thing for Utah."
Hispanic residents are the most prevalent minority group, with a population of 201,559, more than double what it was in 1990. Hispanics are followed by Asians, with a population of 37,108; American Indian and Alaska natives, with 29,684; blacks, with 17,657; and Pacific Islanders, with 15,145. Nearly 48,000 Utahns declared they were of two or more races.
While Utah's growth of 29.6 percent in the past decade is impressive, what's even more staggering is the state's minority population growth rate: 46 percent. From 1980 to 1990, the minority population increased by 37 percent.
The Hispanic population in Utah was 4.9 percent in 1990. It now makes up nearly 9 percent of the state's residents, growing 138 percent from 84,597 in 1990. Nationwide, there are 35.3 million Hispanics, accounting for 13 percent of the total population.
"In one word I'd say the figures are caliente — they're hot," says Sen. Pete Suazo, D- Salt Lake City, the lone Hispanic legislator in the state. "This is clearly remarkable growth."
"The major increases in Hispanic and Asian/Pacific Island categories was not unexpected. Most of the Western states has similar increases in these populations," said R. Thayne Robson of the Bureau of Economic and Business Research at the University of Utah.
Studies show that Asians, among all the immigrant populations, are most prone to rise economically swiftly. They are overrepresented in college enrollment and are more quickly integrated into higher levels of the economic ladder, he said.
Jim Robson, interim executive director of the Utah Foundation, agrees.
"The dramatic increase (in some ethnic groups) is not a surprise."
But it will have implications, particularly for education.
"We're having to deal with populations with different needs from the majority population. The influx of more non-English-speaking children coincides with a general increase in school numbers that will challenge Utah schools in the foreseeable future," he said.
"That's the neat thing about the census. We are able to look at exactly where new students are coming from and plan specifically to accommodate growth."
Hispanics are coming to Utah and staying to raise their families because for many it is a better way of life, Yapias says.
"You drive along State Street and see the small little taco stands. In West Valley you see the same thing. They are creating their own independence, and they're becoming very successful," he said.
Still, the majority of elected officials in the state are white.
Even though 9 percent of the state is Hispanic, Suazo accounts for less than 1 percent of the Legislature representing that group.
The number and proportion of Hispanic residents in Salt Lake City increased dramatically since the 1990 Census. Ten years ago, Hispanics were counted at 15,508, amounting to 9.7 percent of the city's population. In 2000, Hispanics amounted to 34,254, or 18.9 percent. Salt Lake Asians are counted at 3.6 percent, with Pacific Islanders at 1.9 percent. The population on blacks in Salt Lake has stayed relatively stagnant since 1990. In 1990, blacks constituted 1.7 percent of the population. Last year, census takers tallied 3,433 black residents of Salt Lake City, 1.9 percent.
American Indian residents of Salt Lake City in 1990 were 1.6 percent of the population, while in 2000 they amounted to 1.8 percent.
Yet the seven members of the Salt Lake City Council do not include any minority representation, said a council assistant.
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"Even before the census figures, from the very beginning of my administration we have sought to dramatically increase minority representation," said Salt Lake Mayor Rocky Anderson.
Figures provided by an assistant to the mayor support that position. Of 78 new appointments (not reappointments) that Anderson made last year to boards, committees and commissions, 27 were minorities — 13.7 percent. So far this year, he has made 15 such appointments to fill vacancies, and 5 (33.3 percent) were minorities.
In Salt Lake County, 12 percent of the county's 898,387 residents consider themselves to be Hispanic or Latino. No member of the nine-person Salt Lake County Council, nor its mayor, claim Hispanic heritage, but two represent other ethnic minorities.
County Councilman Randy Horiuchi is Japanese-American and Councilman Winston Wilkinson is African-American.
City councils throughout the state tell the same story. One exception is Linda Martinez-Saville, a Hispanic city council member in Sandy, which has 3,875 Hispanics residents representing 4 percent of the population. And in Clearfield, the City Council has one Japanese member in Curtis Oda.
The way to increase minority representation is through making sure minorities are able to vote and that they aren't being spread out through political boundary redistricting, Suazo says.
"With that kind of concentration is Ogden, West Valley, Salt Lake and even in Park City, I would hope they would not be gerrymandered to be in a weaker position," he said.
Even though Hispanics surpassed other minority groups in terms of numbers, the state's director of Pacific Islander Affairs Bill Afeaki says he's excited about the growth rate of the Pacific Islanders population, which jumped almost 200 percent.
"I think we're going to be the fastest-growing group here in Utah," Afeaki said.
The 2000 Census was the first time Pacific Islanders had a racial category of their own. In previous census years, the group was lumped together with Asians.
"We're going to have to learn how to use our demographics. We are two distinct groups with two distinct needs and cultures," he said. "We're very different."
Afeaki says what will really be interesting is the breakdown of ancestry — how many Pacific Islanders are Tongan, Samoan or Polynesian. Those numbers are part of the long-form data that will come out later this year.
Aside from Pacific Islanders and Asians getting their own categories, the 2000 Census for the first time provided categories for people of more than one race. In total, there were 63 racial possibilities, from "white alone" to "white, black, Asian, Pacific Islander, Native American and other."
Moon Ji of the state office of Asian Affairs says the additional race categories thinned out the Asian population of the state since a number of Asians marry people of another race.
Nationally, 6.8 million people selected more than one race. In Utah, 2.1 percent of the population selected one or more race, with 44,560 claiming two races, 2,410 three races, 170 claiming four, 40 claiming five races and five Utahns who answered the census selecting a the option of six races.
Contributing: Joe Bauman, Zack Van Eyck, Brady Snyder, Josh Loftin, Stephen Speckman.
E-MAIL: ehayes@desnews.com