Freeholders Told: Hispanic Population Growing, Most Under 18 Are Here Legally

New Jersey’s Hispanic population represents a market of 1.55 million individuals who like to buy apparel, electronics and food, the Morris County Board of Freeholders was told Wednesday.

Statewide, the approximately 70,000 Hispanic-owned businesses represent $10.1 billion in annual sales, said Christina M. Santiago, director of community and government relations for the Morris County Hispanic-American Chamber of Commerce.

Advertisers, manufacturers and retailers have noticed this buying power, and are increasingly tailoring ads to reach Hispanics, she said Wednesday.

She was one of four representatives of the 22-year-old organization to address the board. The chamber has 1,200 members.

In Morris County, its 60,000 Hispanics represent about 13 percent of the county’s 492,276 residents, Santiago said—and it's a market worth millions.

The Hispanic American Chamber was founded in 1989, said Esperanza Porras-Field, one of the founding members and current president and chief executive officer.

“We are moving into 2011 focusing on how our businesses can survive or even thrive in this difficult economic environment,” Porras-Field said.

The chamber is looking ahead and developing programs to help the next generation thrive, she said.

“It is our responsibility to guide and open the door of opportunities to our new generation. The torch must be passed,” she said.

Among the programs being developed by the Hispanic-American Chamber are a minority business center for which the chamber is seeking a $120,000 grant from the New Jersey Department of Labor; a website devoted to educational material that would be available to members in a video-on-demand format; and training for young entrepreneurs through a business boot camp for high school students.

Chamber Chairman Robert Medina, a professional engineer, said the chamber’s members are professionals like himself—accountants, skilled trades people like plumbers and carpenters, and many owners of small businesses.

Medina said he was given the opportunity to take advantage of life in America when his parents, both immigrants, settled in Union City. He established his engineering business in Morris County and it grew into the largest Hispanic-owned engineering and land surveying firm in the Northeast.

He recently merged his company with T.Y International, one of the top 500 such companies in the world.

Santiago said approximately 35 percent of the national Hispanic population is under the age of 18, compared with about 22 percent of the white population.

That represents the opportunity for considerable population and market growth, she said, and is a prime reason that by 2050 Hispanics will be the largest minority population in the United States.

Of interest to the freeholders was Santiago’s comment that 98 percent of the Hispanics under age 18 are legal residents.

The freeholders have been asking the County College of Morris trustees to change a recently announced policy that would charge illegal immigrants the same in-county tuition rate as legal county residents. Under a policy put in effect after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and only recently changed, illegal immigrants were barred from the school altogether.

Freeholder Ann Grossi said the high percentage of legal Hispanics under 18 was a sign that the the number of CCM students affecteed by the tuition policy change was small.

Freeholder Director William Chegwidden said that the freeholders’ objections to the policy was not aimed at the Hispanic population, but any illegal immigrant applying to the county college.

Santiago presented these statistics to characterize the Hispanic community, based on an interactive community marketing survey:

• 43 percent of first-generation America Hispanics regularly use the Internet; 80 percent of the second generation do so; and 71 percent of the third generation do do.
• 78 percent of those in the Hispanic population are fluent in English; 76 percent are bilingual, and 32 percent are Spanish-dominant.
• 49 percent of Hispanics have high school degrees; 10 percent are college graduates.
• 54 percent of Hispanics have an income of less than $30,000 annually; 23 percent earn between $30,000 and $50,000; 22 percent earn more than $50,000.

Editor's note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the Hispanic-American Chamber received a $14 million grant from AT&T.