Since the early 1960’s, compiling statistics on illegitimacy rates in the United States has been the official responsibility of the National Center for Health Statistics. However, the methodology employed by that federal agency to determine illegitimacy rates according to race has been inaccurate, classifying virtually all illegitimate Hispanic births as illegitimate “white” births. The result is an official illegitimacy rate for “whites” which has been deliberately inflated. Since most people assume “white” is a synonym for “European-American,” the illegitimacy rate statistics—like FBI hate crime statistics which classify most, if not all, Hispanic perpetrators of hate crimes as “white”—officially promote a false and biased view against European-Americans, their culture, and their morals.

This flawed methodology stems from how the federal government treats Hispanics. According to Public Law 94-311 of 1976 and Office of Management and Budget Directive No. 15 of 1977, Hispanics constitute a separate “ethnic” category and can be of any race. When it comes to identifying Hispanics according to a specific race, however, the federal government classifies most as “white.”

Prior to 1980, separate illegitimacy rates for Hispanics were not recorded by either the National Center for Health Statistics or any state government. This lack of interest in such a vital statistic was remarkable for three reasons.

First, federal authorities were already collecting other related data on Hispanics. In 1976, various Hispanic organizations, including the American G.I. Forum, the Latin American Manufacturing Association, the League of United Latin American Citizens, the National Congress of Hispanic American Citizens, the National Council of La Raza, and SER, lobbied for passage of Public Law 94-311. This law mandated “a Government-wide program for the collection, analysis, and publication of data with respect to Americans of Spanish origin or descent” that would indicate their “social, health, and economic condition.”

Second, contrary to the repeated assertions of political and church “leaders” that Hispanic immigrants are an asset because they come from countries which respect family values, Hispanic countries have some of the highest rates of illegitimate births in the world. According to the most recent statistics available (the United Nations Demographic Yearbook, 1975 and 1986; and 1990 data from the Statistical Division of the United Nations’ Secretariat), the illegitimacy rate (the percentage of births to unmarried women) in the Dominican Republic is 67 percent; El Salvador, 67 percent; Guatemala, 65 percent; Mexico, 28 percent (tabulated by date of registration rather than occurrence); Panama, 75 percent; Peru, 47 percent; and Venezuela, 54 percent.

And third, the size of the Hispanic population in the United States was dramatically increasing as a result of the 1965 immigration act and subsequent legislation which encouraged large-scale Hispanic immigration. Between 1961 and 1980, of the nearly eight million immigrants who were admitted to the United States, more than two and a half million came from Latin America (the 18 Spanish-speaking states and Brazil). This represented 33 percent of all legal immigration for those two decades.

As a result of these massive levels of immigration, the Hispanic population in the United States skyrocketed from approximately three and a half million (concentrated in the Southwest)—less than two percent of the total population—to nearly 15 million (nationwide), which is more than six percent of the total population. Even taking into consideration an undercount in the 1960 census, and changing definitions between the 1960 and 1980 censuses, that was an increase of over 300 percent.

During those two decades (1960-1980), while local, state, and federal authorities were recognizing Hispanics as a distinct “minority” group eligible for affirmative action programs, the same authorities were apparently registering most, if not all, illegitimate Hispanic births solely as illegitimate “white” births. Even when 22 states between 1980 and 1991 began to document Hispanic illegitimacy rates for their respective states, the National Center for Health Statistics still did not compile any corresponding national statistics.

During those 11 years, Hispanic immigration continued unabated. Between 1981 and 1992, of the more than ten million immigrants who were admitted to the United States, over four and a half million came from Latin America. These included both legal immigrants and illegal aliens granted amnesty under the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, which took effect in 1989. This number represented 45 percent of all legal immigration during those years. By 1990, the Hispanic population already totaled more than 22 million, an increase of 53 percent in ten years, and represented nine percent of the United States population.

That the National Center for Health Statistics did not compile illegitimacy rate statistics on the exploding Hispanic population prior to 1992 was even more surprising given the findings of the Fertility and Family Statistics Branch of the Census Bureau: the fertility rate for Hispanic immigrants was nearly twice as high as that of native-born Americans. Two significant demographic results of this high fertility rate were reported by the Census Bureau: 40 percent of Hispanics were under 20 years of age, compared to 28 percent of non-Hispanics (an umbrella term encompassing all Asian-, African-, and European-Americans); and 23 percent of Hispanic families were headed by a female with no husband present, compared to 16 percent of non- Hispanic families.

In 1994, while the Fertility and Family Statistics Branch of the Census Bureau still did not establish separate categories for “non-Hispanic whites” and “non-Hispanic white immigrants,” it did add three new ones: “Hispanic immigrants,” “total Hispanics” (includes immigrants and native-born), and “non- Hispanic immigrants.” These new categories revealed a greater difference in fertility rates between Hispanics and non-Hispanics than had been estimated in the 1980’s. The fertility rate per thousand women aged 15 to 44 was 120.8 for “Hispanic immigrants” but 65.6 for “non-Hispanic immigrants,” and 99.2 for “total Hispanics” but 61.5 for “nativeborn” (which includes both Hispanics and non-Hispanics).

The National Center for Health Statistics finally began to compile statistics on both Hispanic and “non-Hispanic white” illegitimacy rates in 1992. They appear in its annual Advance Report of Final Natality Statistics. But, a fundamental problem remains. The statistic for “non-Hispanic whites” appears only in one table (Table 11) at the end of these reports. The text, which is what most of the media cite, provides only illegitimacy rates for “whites,” “blacks,” and “Hispanics.” The public erroneously assumes the official statistics for “white” and “Hispanic” illegitimacy rates are mutually exclusive, but they are not. To determine the annual illegitimacy rate for “whites,” the National Center for Health Statistics counts over 90 percent of all Hispanic women who gave birth during that year a second time —as “white.” And 40 percent of all Hispanic births are illegitimate.

This practice inflates the official illegitimacy rate for “whites” by approximately 20 percent. In 1992, while the illegitimacy rate for “whites” was 22.6 percent, it was really 18.5 percent for “non-Hispanic whites.” In 1993, the rates were 23.6 percent and 19.5 percent, respectively. In 1994, they were 25.4 percent and 20.8 percent, respectively. For 1995, the most recent year for which statistics are available, the illegitimacy rates were 25.3 percent for “whites” and 21.2 percent for “non-Hispanic whites.”

The decline in the “white” illegitimacy rate for 1995 was due to a technical change adopted that year by California for recording Hispanic births. Since in Hispanic culture a hyphenated last name is assumed to denote married parents, California now classifies a Hispanic mother as “married” if she has given her child a double surname (her own and the father’s), either entire surnames or portions thereof, and regardless of sequence. This method of identifying the marital status of a Hispanic mother may not be very reliable, however, since the National Center for Health Statistics notes the “high incidence” of unmarried Hispanic couples living together. Therefore, the Hispanic illegitimacy rate is now most likely being officially undercounted in California.

Changing the method of reporting the marital status of Hispanic mothers produced a statistical decline in the overall illegitimacy rate in California from 36 percent in 1994 to 32 percent in 1995. Since nearly 40 percent of all Hispanic births in the United States are to residents of California, this local change had an impact on national statistics.

The release in 1992 of the first statistics on the illegitimacy rate of Hispanics showed 39 percent of all Hispanic births were illegitimate. This rate increased consistently over the next two years. In 1993, it was 40 percent; and in 1994, it was 43 percent. By introducing this new method of determining the marital status of Hispanic mothers in California, the illegitimate birth rate for Hispanics nationwide was statistically reduced by over two percent.

Even with the change in reporting procedures and the resulting statistical “decline” in illegitimate births to Hispanic mothers, however, the Hispanic illegitimacy rate in 1995 was still over 40 percent and still higher than the rates for 1992 and 1993. When the “Hispanic” category is broken down by recognized subgroups, the illegitimacy rates in 1995 were: Mexican, 38 percent; Cuban, 24 percent; Puerto Rican, 60 percent; Central and South American, 44 percent; and other Hispanics, 44 percent. With the exception of “Central and South American,” which declined slightly from 45.2 percent in 1993 to 44.1 percent in 1995, all other rates were higher than they were in 1992 and 1993. These statistics refute the claim of Hispanic political and church leaders that the Hispanic community and its recognized subgroups are among the leading practitioners of “family values” in the United States.

If the United States government is ever going to produce accurate demographic statistics on illegitimacy rates or anything else, it must deal with the problems outlined above. As things stand now, the politics of illegitimacy rate statistics serve only one purpose—to advance the ongoing efforts of the promoters of multiculturalism, bilingualism, and Third World immigration to dispossess European-Americans of their country and culture.