Mexican business invades America

Aug 12th 2004 
From The Economist print edition

WITH around 39m people, Latinos have overtaken African-Americans as the largest ethnic minority in the United States. This has attracted the attention of politicians and academics—such as Samuel Huntington, who fears that traditional American culture is about to be wiped out. But, for the most part, American businesses have been oddly slow to react.

One reason may have been the belief that Latinos were the poorest segment of the population, and so could be safely ignored as consumers—a view increasingly at odds with the data. The Latino population is not only the largest minority, it is also growing by over 3% a year, compared with 0.6% in the rest of the population. Latinos are also getting richer; their income now accounts for about 8% of America's GDP and is expected to reach 10% by 2010. …