Rodolfo Castro hasn’t noticed the change. He has lived in Fort Wayne since arriving from Mexico a shy 12-year-old in 2004.

He came on a Friday, a stranger to English, and started sixth grade on Monday.

But he made friends – some like him who knew no English and others who eased his path by translating. At home were sisters and an aunt whose sole mission was for the young Rodolfo to do well.

This spring, Castro will graduate from South Side High School with a 4.08 grade-point average – a notch above an A – ranked 16th in his class. But he still remembers his frightened introduction to America he and a growing number of immigrant children face.

“That first day was too much fear because I didn’t understand anything” Castro, now 18, recalls.

While adults have been debating immigration, the world they knew as children has changed dramatically.

If not for growth among minorities – Hispanics in particular – Indiana’s youth population would have declined last decade as the number of white kids shrank by more than 95,000, according to 2010 census figures.

The same is true nationwide. The population of non-Hispanic white children younger than 18 dropped by 4.3 million, as Hispanic children, with the largest increase, grew by 4.8 million, according to a Brookings Institution report released in April.

An aging white population with fewer women in their childbearing years and low fertility rates, and an increase in minorities – largely Hispanics, Asians and those of more than one race – suggest the nation will have a minority white child population this decade, sooner than projected, the report states.

Even before the latest census counts, the advocacy group National Council of La Raza described young Hispanics in a study last year as “poised to become a critical factor in the country’s economic, social and political well-being.”

Immigrant populations have always been an important factor in the nation’s economic development and growth. Recently, Hispanic immigrants have become a significantly larger player – supporting businesses and creating others.

In Allen County, one in three children is now a minority.

The increase in young minorities comes in time to support a shrinking workforce as baby boomers retire. But preparing those children for a future of what is billed as highly skilled jobs could prove politically, socially and educationally challenging, according to the Brookings study.

“Racial generation gaps” and political divides could emerge as a largely white older population and a diverse young workforce confront resources and social issues. Education could prove a hurdle, given some minority groups’ historical lower levels of educational attainment, the study states.

Education vital

Noting those wide education gaps, state demographer Matt Kinghorn said education and training will be “huge for the future workforce in Indiana.”

“It’s going to be the challenge of can we up our game in getting the educational outcomes, getting any worker, really, the education and training they need to enter the workforce,” said Kinghorn, who works for the Indiana Business Research Center, a part of Indiana University.

Rodolfo Castro, a legal U.S. resident from Tijuana, Mexico, has had help on his path to becoming one of the top students at South Side. He is the youngest of eight siblings, all of whom encourage him. His parents – one in Mexico and one in Southern California – call in their support. His father visits occasionally.

But the driving force the last several years has been his aunt, Iza Arreola, a U.S. citizen who moved to Fort Wayne in 2002. She insisted that Rodolfo and his sisters live with her while they attended school.

“I understood the little ones could learn more,” said Arreola, who has lived in the U.S. since 1981.

Northeast Indiana reflects what is happening nationally.

White children in Allen County make up 66 percent of all children, down from 75 percent in 2000. Blacks remain the largest minority, but their portion of all children declined as Hispanics increased in number.

Most other northeast Indiana counties recorded youth population declines that would have been greater if not for minority children.

The rapid change has not gone unnoticed by strategists.

A 2006 report prepared for the Northeast Indiana Regional Workforce Board addressed future workers.

“It is, of course, imperative to see that the entire workforce has the skills and preparation it will need for the revolutionary changes around the bend for northeast Indiana’s key industries, but the fact of its increasingly Hispanic composition presents special challenges which the region can ill afford to ignore.”

High dropout rates

Indiana businesses are paying attention, Kinghorn said.

“It’s less the racial-ethnic makeup as it is getting the educational skills in place,” he said. “That’s going to be the challenge. So, I don’t think the businesses care one way or another what the profile is of their workforce. It’s whether or not the state can provide the workers that they need.”

High dropout rates and low test scores put young Hispanics at a disadvantage for jobs, according to the National Council of La Raza report.

In Allen County 41.5 percent of Hispanics 25 and older have less than a high school education, compared with 21 percent of Asians, 20 percent of blacks and 9.4 percent of whites, according to census estimates.

Still, because of a “strong attachment to the labor force” Hispanic dropouts have higher employment rates and earnings than white and black dropouts, the La Raza study says.

Over the years, Fort Wayne Community Schools has added teachers and services to help immigrants such as Castro and political refugees such as those from Burma learn English quickly, said Emily Schwartz Keirns, English Language Learners coordinator. Once fluent, more than 90 percent of refugee students in grades three through eight, for example, passed ISTEP+, the state’s standardized test, she said.

The biggest challenge, Schwartz Keirns said, is for students to learn English as they complete other school work.

Educating young Hispanics is a priority for Hispanic groups nationwide, said Herb Hernandez, past president of the Greater Fort Wayne Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and member of the Indiana Commission on Hispanic/Latino Affairs, which makes recommendations to the governor and legislature.

Although he believes the nation is ready to pay for the education and training young people will need for jobs, Hernandez said there are unknowns, such as the strain on social services if a large number of workers remain idle.

Ready to work?

Steve Corona, president of JobWorks, a non-profit training and placement services organization in Fort Wayne, agreed that employers are preparing for a more diverse workforce and looking foremost for people with a good work ethic.

“The primary question is: Are the kids ready to work?” he said.

Federal money for summer employment that helped prepare young people for future jobs is gone, said Corona, a member of the Fort Wayne Community Schools board.

They now compete with adults for jobs young people traditionally filled, he added.

“Without a doubt, formal education is going to be a barrier to people as they seek better-paying jobs,” he said. “My concern is that we really don’t have the funds to support English language learning in many states, beginning with Indiana.”

Both Corona and Hernandez lamented the defeat of the federal DREAM Act, which would grant conditional legal status to immigrant children brought to the U.S. before age 16 and who attend college or enlist in the military for at least two years. The bill was defeated in December.

It’s an issue that white adults, who will assume minority status in coming years while maintaining influence, should reconsider, Hernandez said.

“If you’re deporting them to their country of origin, then we are losing some bright minds here,” he said. “And you look at how many of these students fall into this category.”

Corona called congressional denial of the act “counterproductive” to the education of young people.

“It’s interesting because if you are an undocumented resident of this country and you know you can’t get in-state tuition, why then would you continue to graduate from high school knowing that you’ll never be able to get into college?”

Castro has seen it firsthand. Some of his friends dropped out because they were tired of school, he said. Others had to quit and get jobs to help their families.

Castro said he is a finalist for Ivy Tech’s accelerated associate degree program. Even if he’s not selected, he said, he’ll get financial aid and go anyway. But failure to pass the DREAM Act left others behind.

“I feel that should have passed,” he said. “I have friends who wanted to go to college, but it’s things like that that’s holding them back.”

rshawgo@jg.net