Hispanic population up 6% in BR, Census says

• By JEREMY HARPER
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Aug 7, 2008 - Page: 1A - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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Continuing a long-running trend, the Baton Rouge area’s Hispanic population grew by 6 percent from 2006 to 2007, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates released today.

And for a second straight year, the Census estimated that ethnic minorities constitute a majority of the people living in East Baton Rouge.

Dr. Troy Blanchard, an LSU sociology professor and demographer, said the numbers offer the clearest picture yet of how the area’s demographic makeup has changed since Hurricane Katrina.

“This is the first time we have a reliable picture of what the population looks like because that 2006 (Census) estimate was just a mess,” Blanchard said.

In East Baton Rouge Parish, there were 683 more people of Hispanic origin in July 2007 compared with a year before, a 6 percent increase, the Census report shows. With that bump, the Hispanic population reached 11,800, or nearly 3 percent of the parish population.

The parish’s Hispanic population has grown 57 percent from 2000 to 2007 — and the growth has accelerated since Hurricane Katrina, the Census report shows. The report says the Hispanic population grew at even faster rates in Livingston and Ascension parishes over the same period.

“The obvious reason is there was a severe demand for labor,” Blanchard said. “As we know, right now Baton Rouge is one of the few economies that is doing well, and people tend to move where there are jobs.”

Over the same year East Baton Rouge Parish saw a small increase in its black population and a comparable drop in its white population. Both shifts continued a trend that has been occurring since 2000, according to the Census report.

By July 2007, the 211,067 non-Hispanic whites accounted for 49 percent of the parish population and the 192,305 non-Hispanic blacks made up 44 percent of the population, the Census report shows. The parish’s Asian population held nearly steady from 2006 to 2007, dropping only 62 people to 10,527, the Census report shows.

Last year’s Census estimate turned up similar results, but Blanchard said the new report, another year removed from Katrina, means those numbers were not a statistical fluke.

“That’s not just a blip on the radar from the hurricane — that is permanent,” Blanchard said.

Blanchard said the Census estimate also seems to indicate that many of those white residents in East Baton Rouge are moving to Livingston and Ascension parishes.

Hispanic figures doubted