The United States has generally been a “white” country, consisting primarily of the
descendants of European settlers, with a substantial African American minority population.
By the late twentieth century, these proportions were changing, as reflected
in Figure 2.6 on page 31. In particular, the self-identified Hispanic population was
projected to grow from 12.5 percent of the population—about the same proportion
as African Americans—to 17.7 percent of the population in 2009. (The “Hispanic”
classification is of an ethnic group and is not a racial category on the census. Most
Hispanics identify themselves as white on the census.)