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AP | By HOPE YEN - 05/17/2012 4:27 am



WASHINGTON (AP) — For the first time, racial and ethnic minorities make up more than half the children born in the U.S.,
capping decades of heady immigration growth that is now slowing.

New 2011 census estimates highlight sweeping changes in the nation's racial makeup and the prolonged impact of a
weak economy, which is now resulting in fewer Hispanics entering the U.S.

"This is an important landmark," said Roderick Harrison, a former chief of racial statistics at the Census Bureau who
is now a sociologist at Howard University. "This generation is growing up much more accustomed to diversity than its
elders."

The report comes as the Supreme Court prepares to rule on the legality of Arizona's strict immigration law, with many
states weighing similar get-tough measures.

As a whole, the nation's minority population continues to rise, following a higher-than-expected Hispanic count in the
2010 census. Minorities increased 1.9 percent to 114.1 million, or 36.6 percent of the total U.S. population, lifted by
prior waves of immigration that brought in young families and boosted the number of Hispanic women in their prime
childbearing years.

But a recent slowdown in the growth of the Hispanic and Asian populations is shifting notions on when the tipping point
in U.S. diversity will come — the time when non-Hispanic whites become a minority.