A Colorado county offers glimpse of America’s future

Aug 13, 2021

Nearly a quarter century ago, when Maria de Lourdes Zavala moved here from Michoacán, Mexico, Commerce City was a hub for mostly White agricultural and oil refinery workers.

[This is a trick statistic. The White population is the LARGEST group still. But the word-smiths lump the non-White groups together to create a questionable conclusion. Technically, Whites are a minority on the planet. And the Jews are even worse!]

“There weren’t any Mexicans, almost nobody spoke Spanish,” said Zavala, 65, reflecting on a time when the surrounding county was more than two-thirds White. “Now it’s all different.”

As she makes her way to her restaurant each morning, she passes by quinceañera venues, a tamale cafe, a Mexican candy store and shops for wire transfer services. Her customers often greet her in Spanish, standing at the counter below a string of papel picado — colorful Mexican banners — and in front of a menu with a mix of Spanish and English words, advertising items like “chicken nuggets con papas” — with fries.

The changes Zavala has witnessed are reflected in a momentous shift in the 2020 Census figures released Thursday: For the first time in its history, the majority of Adams County, Colo., residents are people of color.

In fact, the Census figures confirm, the entire American West has flipped to majority-minority — the first major geographical region in the United States to do so. The South is not far behind. And by the 2040s, the entire nation is expected to follow.

Mapping America’s racial population shifts over the last decade
Adams joined 64 other counties that shifted to majority-minority in the last decade, and together they offer a glimpse into the future of America, a nation undergoing a rapid demographic transformation. Only four decades ago, 80 percent of the U.S. population was White. Now, it’s 57 percent, marking the first time the population’s share of White people has dipped below 60 percent.

With the change has come a struggle, and a question of whether a country that has historically offered preferential treatment to its White majority can evolve its power structures to better reflect the new multiracial reality.

Census data shows the number of White people in the U.S. fell for first time since 1790

In Adams, the question has become especially relevant: A proslavery colonel was one of the first settlers in the area in the mid-19th century, and for most of its history, its leaders have been White. But in recent years, communities of color — predominantly Mexican American — have begun to gain political representation and speak up against conditions they feel adversely affect them, including environmental pollution and substandard schools.

[With Jews and Hollywood types this is a contest!]