The Census Bureau has released a working paper written by me and my colleagues entitled The Size, Place of Birth, and Geographic Distribution of the Foreign-Born Population in the United States: 1960 to 2010.

This working paper summarizes many of the changes that have occurred over the last 50 years, as the foreign-born population has shifted from an older, predominantly European population settled in the Northeast and Midwest to a younger, predominantly Latin American and Asian population settled in the West and South.

The paper also includes several graphs and a set of maps — one for each decade from 1960 to 2010 — dramatically illustrating the change in size and distribution of the foreign-born population in the United States through time.

This week, a colleague and I released our first blog on Random Samplings, the official blog of the U.S. Census Bureau. Entitled Faster vs. Bigger: Size and Growth of the Foreign-Born from Asia and Latin America, it was promoted to the Census Bureau’s internet site as part of the release of another report entitled The Foreign Born From Asia: 2011.

The primary reason we wanted to write the blog was to counter what seemed to be a misunderstanding by several journalists about the implications of the recent decline in the rate of growth of the foreign-born population from Latin America (including Mexico).

It is true that the rate of growth of the foreign-born population from Latin America has slowed, especially during the latter half of the last decade. It is also true that the rate of growth of the foreign-born population from Asia was higher than that of the foreign-born from Latin America during the same period. It is also possible that these differential rates of growth will continue for the next few years or even throughout the next decade.

However, in 2011, the foreign-born population from Latin America (21.2 million) was almost twice as large at the foreign-born population from Asia (11.6 million). In addition, the foreign-born population from Latin America is still growing, although at a slower rate than the foreign born from Asia. Due to its larger population base, the foreign-born population from Latin America will remain the largest region-of-birth group for the foreseeable future, regardless of differentials in growth rates when compared with the Asia foreign born.