* Tribune…

The majority of Illinois children will be of a minority or mixed race by 2020, according to projections recently released by demographers at two public policy institutions.

It’s a forecast that signals a more racially diverse America in the coming decades, as the country is expected to become minority-majority around 2043. By the early 2030s, 18- to 44-year-olds become minority-majority, and adults 45 and older reach the shift in the late 2050s, according to projections by the Brookings Institution and the Center for American Progress based on U.S. census data.

Children, however, will reach the milestone far sooner, and Illinois is among the first 18 states expected to cross the bar in 2020. […]

In Illinois, the children of first and second generations of Mexican immigrants who moved to the state throughout the 1990s are bolstering the Hispanic population, as Hispanic children are expected to make up 25 percent of the state’s child population by 2020, projections show. That same year, just under 50 percent of Illinois children will be white, about 16 percent of children will be black and about 9 percent of children will be Asian, multiracial or of another race. By 2060, the number of white children in Illinois will slip to about 35 percent, projections show, while the number of Hispanic children will rise to 36 percent. Black children will be at about 15 percent and Asian, multiracial and other nonwhite children at about 15 percent.

* The accompanying chart…

Go read the whole thing.

* This is not particularly new, by the way. From a 1996 study…

At mid-decade, the population of Illinois is just under 12 million. At the 1990 census, 11,430,602 Illinoisans were enumerated, including 952,272 foreign-born residents. From 1990 through 1994, about 250,000 legal immigrants settled in Illinois In addition, the number of illegal residents in Illinois is estimated at between 215,000 and 355,000. Thus, immigration is a major contributor to population growth in the state, and illegal immigrants may comprise as much as 30 percent of the state’s foreign-born population, most of which resides in the Chicago area.

More people leave Illinois and move to other states than enter from other states. Between 1985 and 1990, while 667,778 people moved to Illinois from another state, just under one million moved from Illinois to another state. Over the same period, almost 200,000 people moved into Illinois from abroad. Thus, the population challenge facing Illinois is not growth; it is composition. For example, according to studies by demographer William Frey of the University of Michigan, between 1985 and 1990, almost three-quarters of the net out-migration of 320,331 were non-Hispanic Whites; of the 195,654 immigrants who came to Illinois, over two-thirds were minorities.

According to the 1990 census, 74.8 percent of Illinoisans were White, 14.6 percent were Black, 8.0 percent were Hispanic and 2.6 percent were Asian or Other (i.e., including Native Americans and Others). Of the 952,272 foreign born residing in Illinois in 1990, Mexico was by far the leading country of birth, accounting for 281,651 people- almost 30 percent of all the foreign born living in Illinois. Other leading sources included Poland (80,594), the Philippines (49,119), India (40,817), Germany (39,920), Italy (33,812) and Korea (30,058).