Laura Thompson of TAAN-TV embraces Laini Simmons during the launch of the “Work is the New Hustle” program at the Eastside Boys & Girls Club in June. New 2020 census numbers just released show that San Antonio’s population is becoming more racially and ethnically diverse.
Billy Calzada /Staff PhotographerThe city of San Antonio’s white non-Hispanic population declined during the past decade, while its Hispanic populace grew by 9 percent and the number of Black residents grew by nearly 13 percent, according to 2020 census numbers released this week.
These trends mirror what’s happening in Bexar County and Texas as a whole, where the white non-Latinos’ share of the total population declined between 2010 and 2020, while Hispanic and Black residents accounted for greater portions of the population by the end of the decade.
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And across the United States, the number of white non-Latinos declined by more than 5 million during that same 10-year period as their share of the total population dropped by nearly 6 percentage points. But the number of Hispanics nationwide grew by nearly 12 million and captured a greater share of the nation’s total populace. The number of Black residents grew nationally by more than 2 million even as their percentage of the total population remained largely the same.
The nation, the state, the county and the city have become more diverse.
These developments — and the 2020 census findings — aren’t a surprise to former San Antonio city councilwoman and longtime activist María Antonietta Berriozábal.
“It’s an affirmation of what many of us and our demographers have known for a long time,” Berriozábal said Friday. “In San Antonio, this has been the fact for already several years, where Latinos are the majority.
“I think for us, as leaders, we have to take very seriously the responsibility to make those numbers count, do whatever we can to inform and help people become citizens, register to vote and vote — to make it easier for people to access government with their opinions so that they will feel part of their city.
“What the figures do is create the imperative that business as usual is not acceptable,” said Berriozábal, who served as district manager of San Antonio’s central census office during the 1980 population count.
In both San Antonio and in Bexar County, Hispanics continue to be the largest racial or ethnic group, just as they were in 2010.
Hispanics accounted for 64 percent of San Antonio’s total population last year. The number of Hispanics living in the city limits rose to 916,000 — a gain of 77,000 people, or a 9 percent increase — from 2010 when this ethnicity amounted to 63 percent of the population.
San Antonio’s Black population also increased by more than 10,000 throughout the decade. When the census numbers were collected last year, there were nearly 94,000 Black non-Hispanic residents were living in the city, amounting to 6.5 percent of the total population. That’s a 13 percent increase from the number of residents recorded in 2010.
In contrast, the number of white non-Hispanic residents in San Antonio fell by more than 17,000 between 2010 and 2020, a 5 percent decline. That number dropped below 336,000 last year. Non-Hispanic whites accounted for 23 percent of the city’s total population last year, down from almost 27 percent in 2010.
In Bexar County, white non-Hispanics also accounted for a lesser share of the total population by the end of the decade.
In 2010, whites without Hispanic ethnicity amounted to 30 percent of the county’s population. By 2020, this share had declined to 27 percent. By last year, there were 536,000 non-Hispanic whites living in Bexar County.
By contrast, Bexar County’s Hispanic population grew by 184,000 throughout the decade, an increase of more than 18 percent. Nearly 1.2 million Hispanics were living in the county in 2020, amounting to 59 percent of the population.
The number of Black non-Hispanics also increased in Bexar County, growing by 25 percent throughout the decade — a surge of more than 29,000 people. Nearly 148,000 Blacks without Hispanic ethnicity were living in Bexar County by 2020. They accounted for 7.4 percent of Bexar County’s population — up from 6.9 percent in 2010.
Bexar County’s diversity index, measured by the U.S. Census Bureau, also increased in 2020 to 57 percent. That’s up from 55.8 percent in 2010.
“The landscape of those individuals who are able to run for office and run for office successfully — that’s changing,” said Gregory Hudspeth, president of the NAACP’s San Antonio branch and a St. Philip’s College associate professor of political science.
“Many steps are being taken to suppress the minority vote. And the only way groups that do not have a minority vote coalition as part of their general population ... the only way to continue to stay in office is to limit the number of African Americans and Hispanics who are able to vote ... Obviously, that is a concern of ours.
“The growth in Texas really is a function of the growth of the minorities,” Hudspeth said Friday. “What will occur if history continues to indicate how these things play out at the end of the day — the lines will be gerrymandered in a way to continue to minimize the number of African Americans and Hispanics that are in the state Legislature or who are able to get elected to Congress.”
The same trends are happening across Texas. The white non-Hispanics’ share of the state’s population declined between 2010 and 2020, while Hispanics and Blacks’ shares increased.
Texas’ white non-Hispanic population increased by more than 187,000 between 2010 and 2020. But this demographic’s share of the statewide population declined from 45 percent to 40 percent. As of last year, nearly 11.6 million white non-Hispanics were living in Texas.
The state’s Hispanic population, however, grew by nearly 2 million during that same decade. By 2020, more than 11.4 million Hispanics were living in Texas, accounting for 39 percent of the population — an increase of nearly 2 percentage points.
White non-Hispanics outnumbered Hispanics across the state by only 143,000 last year.
Texas’ Black non-Hispanic population also increased by nearly 558,000 in the past decade..
In 2020, more than 3.4 million Blacks without Hispanic ethnicity were living in Texas, amounting to 12 percent of the state’s population.
That’s up from nearly 2.9 million a decade earlier, when Black non-Hispanics amounted to 11.5 percent of Texas’ population.
The Hearst Texas Data Visualization team contributed to this story.
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