Census: Delaware’s Non-White Population Soars

Immigrants say they’re more at ease in greater numbers

By SUMMER HARLOW, The News Journal

Posted Saturday, February 17, 2007The News Journal/RON SOLIMAN

When the Cabrera family moved to Delaware 15 years ago, they were the only Hispanics on their block.

If they wanted green bananas like they ate in their homeland the Dominican Republic, they made a special trip to one of Wilmington’s few Hispanic grocers.

And they could forget about attending a non-Catholic worship service in Spanish.

With the wide availability of jobs in the poultry and construction industries, though, more and more Hispanics began calling Delaware home. In the past five years, as grocers, salons and restaurants catering to Hispanic customers sprang up from Wilmington to Georgetown, the Cabreras began noting a shift in Delaware’s ethnic makeup — a shift the U.S. Census Bureau confirms.

The proper defintion of Hispanic applies to persons who were born in the European country of Spain, whereas the term ‘mestizo’  — an amalgamation of South American Indian, some Black, and White bloodlines — is the correct biological defintion of persons who are from Mexico and all points south.

original article

2007-03-22