By: History.com Editors

2003

Hispanics are officially declared the largest minority group in the U.S.

History.com Editors

Published: September 25, 2019

Last Updated: January 24, 2025

On January 22, 2003, the U.S. Census Bureau releases detailed statistics on race and ethnicity, the first time such numbers had been released since the 2000 census. The numbers showed that the Hispanic population of the United States had increased by 4.7 percent since the last count, officially making Hispanics the largest minority group in the country.

The trends of the last several decades had indicated that this milestone was approaching. The foreign-born population of the United States had been increasing exponentially, from just 9.6 million in 1970 to 31.1 million by 2000, and immigrants from Latin America accounted for a large percentage of those newcomers. The 2000 census showed that 29 percent of immigrants in the U.S. had come from Mexico alone, while immigrants from other Latin American nations made up another 22 percent. Birth rates in the Hispanic-American community were also among the highest in the nation.

How the Census Led to Modern Computing

The census has been around since the beginning of the United States, which meant the entire population had to be counted by hand. Until one inventor saw a better way forward.

The demographic shift was significant for several reasons. Robert Puro from the Pew Hispanic Center told the New York Times that it challenged the way Americans thought about race: "[M]uch of this nation's history is wrapped up in the interplay between black and white," he said. "This serves as an official announcement that we as Americans cannot think of race in that way anymore.'' The announcement marked one of the inciting moments for an undercurrent of racism that has brewed in America ever since, as some whites have become increasingly concerned with birth rates and the notion that America will someday no longer be majority-white. But Sonia Perez, from the National Council of La Raza, framed the landmark as a moment for unity. "Rather than comparing groups," she said, "we should be looking at the status of communities."

The Hispanic-Americans represented by the census data have had a profound effect on American society. In many parts of the nation, Spanish is now on at least equal footing with English, and American music and culture would be unrecognizable without the contributions of its largest minority group.

Timeline

Also on This Day in History

Discover more of the major events, famous births, notable deaths and everything else history-making that happened on January 22nd

1779

Claudius Smith, “Cowboy of the Ramapos,” hangs

Famed Tory outlaw Claudius Smith meets his end on the gallows on January 22, 1779 in Goshen, New York. In the wake of his death, patriot civilians during the American Revolution hope for relief from guerrilla warfare in upstate New York.

1788

English poet Lord Byron is born

Romantic poet George Gordon, Lord Byron, is born this day in Aberdeen, Scotland. Despite his later fortune and title, Byron grew up in poverty and was burdened by a clubfoot. At age 10, he inherited his great uncle’s title and became Lord Byron. He attended Harrow, then Trinity College, Cambridge, where he ran up enormous debts and pursued passionate relationships with women and men. His first published volume of poetry, Hours of Idleness (1807), was savaged by critics, especially in Scotland, and his second published work, English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809), attacked the English literary establishment.

1840

British colonists reach New Zealand

On January 22, 1840, colonists aboard The New Zealand Company’s ship, the Aurora, become the first European settlers to arrive at Petone to found the settlement that would become Wellington.

1879

Chief Dull Knife makes last fight for freedom

Cheyenne chief Dull Knife (also anglicized as "Morning Star") and his people are defeated by U.S. army soldiers after one of their "outbreaks" from reservation confinement. In doing so, the so-called Dull Knife Outbreak came to an end.

1901

Queen Victoria dies

The death of Queen Victoria on January 22, 1901, ends an era in which most of her British subjects know no other monarch. Her 63-year reign saw the growth of an empire on which the sun never set. Victoria restored dignity to the English monarchy and ensured its survival as a ceremonial political institution.

1905

Bloody Sunday Massacre in Russia

Well on its way to losing a war against Japan in the Far East, czarist Russia is wracked with internal discontent that finally explodes into violence in St. Petersburg in what will become known as the Bloody Sunday Massacre.

1918

Ukraine declares its independence

Soon after the Bolsheviks seized control in immense, troubled Russia in November 1917 and moved toward negotiating peace with the Central Powers, the former Russian state of Ukraine declares its total independence.

1920

Netherlands refuses to extradite Kaiser Wilhelm to the Allies

On January 22, 1920, the Dutch government refuses demands by the Allies for the extradition of Wilhelm II, the former kaiser of Germany, who had been living in exile in the Netherlands since November 1918.

1973

Roe v. Wade is decided

Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision that established a woman’s legal right to an abortion, is decided on January 22, 1973. The Court ruled, in a 7-2 decision, that a woman’s right to choose an abortion was protected by the privacy rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The legal precedent for the decision was rooted in the 1965 case of Griswold v. Connecticut, which established the right to privacy involving medical procedures.

1973

Lyndon Baines Johnson dies in Texas

On January 22, 1973, former President Lyndon Baines Johnson dies in Johnson City, Texas, at the age of 64.

1980

Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov arrested in Moscow

In Moscow, Andrei Dmitriyevich Sakharov, the Soviet physicist who helped build the USSR’s first hydrogen bomb, is arrested after criticizing the Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan. He was subsequently stripped of his numerous scientific honors and banished to remote Gorky.

1981

Final portrait of John and Yoko appears on the cover of “Rolling Stone”

A month and a half after the shocking assassination of John Lennon, on January 22, 1981, Rolling Stone magazine’s John Lennon tribute issue hits newsstands, featuring a cover photograph of a naked Lennon curled up in a fetal embrace of his fully-clothed wife Yoko Ono. The iconic Annie Leibovitz portrait would become the definitive image of perhaps the most photographed married couple in music history.

1984

Apple’s iconic “1984” commercial airs during Super Bowl XVIII

During a break in the action of Super Bowl XVIII on January 22nd, 1984, audiences first see a commercial that is now widely agreed to be one of the most powerful and effective of all time. Apple's "1984" spot, featuring a young woman throwing a sledgehammer through a screen on which a Big Brother-like figure preaches about "the unification of thought," got people around the United States talking and heralded a new age for Apple, consumer technology and advertising.

1998

Ted Kaczynski pleads guilty to bombings

In a Sacramento, California, courtroom on January 22, 1998, Theodore J. Kaczynski pleads guilty to all federal charges against him, acknowledging his responsibility for a 17-year campaign of package bombings attributed to the “Unabomber.”

**EXCLUSIVE** Ted Kaczynski In Prison

2008

Heath Ledger dies of accidental prescription drug overdose

On January 22, 2008, Hollywood mourns a talented young actor’s life cut tragically short, after the body of 28-year-old Heath Ledger is found by his masseuse and housekeeper on the floor of his rented apartment in the SoHo neighborhood of New York City.

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Citation Information

Article title
Hispanics are officially declared the largest minority group in the U.S.
Website Name
History
Date Accessed
March 22, 2025
Publisher
A&E Television Networks
Last Updated
January 24, 2025
Original Published Date
September 25, 2019

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