Utah's population keeps showing more racial diversity, with blacks leading the way in percentage growth as a population last year and Latinos accounting for a quarter of the state's total growth, according to U.S. Census estimates released today.
    Blacks in Utah, while still a tiny fraction of the state, have almost doubled in the past eight years, the Census Bureau found. The black population grew by 8.8 percent in the year that ended July 1, while the state as a whole grew 2.6 percent.
    Some black leaders say the increase is mostly driven by the state's growing economy. And although Utah's reputation within and outside of its borders might be improving among blacks, they say the community still faces challenges.
    Connie Washington, a black Salt Lake City native, left Utah for about 10 years and returned with her husband and four kids in 2004. Since then, she said, she has noticed more blacks along the Wasatch Front.
    "When I was growing up, everybody knew everybody [in the black community], but that's not the case anymore," she said.
    The black experience in Utah still can be isolating, though. Washington said she moved to Layton in hopes that it would be more diverse because of the Air Force base there, but it wasn't. She said her kids grew up in Philadelphia, so they were in culture shock when they started school in Utah.
    Utah's varied
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minority groups now account for nearly 18 percent of the population but 40 percent of last year's population growth, University of Utah demographer Pam Perlich said. A quarter of the growth came from Latino migrants and births. And the minority population on the whole is markedly younger than the white, non-Latino population, whose median age in Utah of 29.4 is 5.5 years older than the Latino population and 6.5 years older than the black population.
    At the same time that the number of white young adults is hitting a trough, Perlich said, the young minority population is poised to change the state's youthful outlook.
    "Many of them may not be at voting age yet, but they're going to get there," she said. "Our whitest, most homogenous population is the oldest population."
    Of roughly 2.65 million Utahns last year, nearly 307,000 were Latino, according to the Census report. About 44,000 were black, including those who identify with more than one racial or ethnic group. Asians number nearly 70,000, and American Indians about 45,000. Pacific Islanders are the state's smallest minority group, at about 27,000.
    Washington and some black leaders say Utah seems to be embracing its diversity and creating a more welcoming environment as more people accept each other's differences.
    "They see a Utah that's changing and isn't the homogenous state that it was 20 years ago," said Michael Styles, director of the Utah Office of Black Affairs and a Utah native.
    Stanley Ellington, Utah Black Chamber of Commerce executive director, who moved to the state in 2000, said the development of the state's ethnic chambers shows Utah's support for small minority businesses.
    "It's helped improve the image of Utah as a multicultural environment," he said.
    Still, Styles said there is racial discrimination that sometimes gives Utah a bad name. He declined to give any examples.
    "We have things that set us back, but we have to keep stepping forward," he said.
    Perlich said factors that might have contributed to growth in the black population in recent years include displacement by Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf Coast, increases in employment at Hill Air Force Base, an influx of African refugees and economic conditions that are favorable when compared to upper Midwest cities including Detroit and Chicago.
    State economists have said that economic conditions also have driven Latino migration to the state, particularly for construction work, though some of those workers in fact may have left the state as the economy cooled after the Census reporting period in July.
    "We'll have to wait until the next [year's] release to see that," said Juliette Tennert, chief economist and demographer in the Governor's Office of Planning and Budget. "We can probably anticipate a moderation in population growth, but it would probably be across the board for all races."
    In the meantime, it appears that Utah is becoming more attractive to all racial and ethnic groups, she said.
    "Utah's becoming more and more diverse," she said. "That adds to the quality of life and attracts all sorts of migration."