Hispanics are the fastest growing demographic population in North Carolina

The demographics are shifting in the state of North Carolina. The state’s Latino population spiked from about 67,000 in 1990 to more than 1.1 million in 2020, according to U.S. Census data.

By the year 2000, the Latino population in North Carolina was nearly five times more than it was in 1990, and since then, it has blossomed into the fastest growing population in the state.

Ten years later, there were 825,000 Hispanic North Carolinians, a total of 8% of the overall population.

For the next decade, the Hispanic population increased by 40% to 1.1 million people (or 11% of the total population), a trend that is expected to result in two million Hispanic North Carolinians by 2050, which will total 14% of North Carolina’s total population.

"The number of Latino residents is growing much faster than any other racial or ethnic group in the state," said Nathan Dollar, the director of Carolina Demography, a population trend component of UNC Chapel Hill.

"The biggest increases in the share of the population tend to be the more rural counties," he said. "Duplin County is almost a quarter Latino, Sampson County, 21-22%, Lee County, 20%.

Otto Cedeno, president and CEO of Durham-based Movil Realty told ABC11 Eyewitness News in North Carolina that of the 1,500 homes his agency sold last year, 80% were sold to Hispanic families.

Some of those Hispanic families already lived in North Carolina while others were relocating into the mid-Atlantic state.

While there are some misperceptions that the growing Hispanic population are immigrants, only 38% of North Carolina Latinos are non-native and foreign-born.

Most Latino North Carolinians are the children of immigrants. Of those living in North Carolina in 2021, one of every three were born in the state and another 27% were born in another state or abroad of U.S. citizens, according to the North Carolina Office of State Budget and Management.

Of the 38% foreign-born Hispanic population, many are now naturalized.

"The majority of buyers are from Mexico, Central America," Cedeno told the local station, which reported his firm has mostly bilingual agents.

In 1990, the Mexican-origin population made up 38% of North Carolina’s Hispanic population. By 2021, 50% of the Hispanic population were Mexican or Mexican American.

“What brought them here? I think the quality of life and the people, the warmth of the south,” Cedeno said.

By 2021, 68% of all Hispanic North Carolinians were citizens.