The trend has been that San Diego County has been getting more and more diverse every year. The 2010 Census now confirms that.
The latest count shows there are 48,000 fewer whites in San Diego County compared to the 2000 Census. The decline means that whites are no longer the dominant race in the county, dropping from 55 percent of the population (1,548,833) to 49 percent (1,500,047).
In contrast, several minority populations showed significant gains: Latinos grew by 32 percent to 991,348 and Asians by about 34 percent to 328,058. Pacific Islanders also grew, but at a much slower rate of about 11 percent to 13,504.
Further, the number of people identifying themselves as being of two or more races also increased by 16 percent to 94,943.
Other populations showed declines.
They included Native-Americans, which dropped by about 7 percent to 14,908, and African-Americans, which showed slid about 5 percent to 146,600.
San Diego State University professor John Weeks said the latest Census confirms a trend that he has been tracking for some time. Once he finishes crunching the numbers, he believes the data will show that, for the first time, the white population did not grow in San Diego County from one census to the next.
“There’s been evidence that there has been quite a bit of domestic out migration from San Diego County to other parts of the United States," Weeks said shortly after the census figures were released Tuesday. "And that is most heavily engaged in by the non-Hispanic white population.“
More detailed Census data is expected to be released in the months ahead.
