Mark Hugo Lopez

The nation’s Hispanic student population reached several milestones in 2011, according to a Pew Hispanic Center analysis of newly available U.S. Census Bureau data.

Up to 1.7 million unauthorized immigrants ages 30 and under who arrived in the U.S. as children are eligible for a new Obama administration program that would shield them from deportation and enable them to apply for temporary but renewable work permits, according to updated estimates from the Pew Hispanic Center.

A majority of Hispanics say they most often identify themselves by their family’s country of origin; just 24% say they prefer a pan-ethnic label.

A majority of Latinos believe that the economic downturn that began in 2007 has been harder on them than on any other ethnic group in America.

Nearly two-thirds of the 10.2 million unauthorized adult immigrants in the United States have lived in this country for at least 10 years and nearly half are parents of minor children.

The poverty rate for Hispanics was 28.2% in 2010, higher than it was for blacks, non-Hispanic whites or Asians, and higher than the official poverty rate for Hispanics, 26.7%, reported by the Census Bureau.

The spread of poverty across the United States that began at the onset of the Great Recession of 2007-2009 and accelerated last year hit one fast-growing demographic group especially hard: Latino children.

The 2010 U.S. Census counted 3.7 million Hispanics living in Puerto Rico. This was down from 3.8 million in 2000. By contrast, in the 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, the population of Puerto Rican-origin Hispanics increased from 3.4 million in 2000 to 4.6 million in 2010, surpassing Puerto Rico's Hispanic population.

Browse detailed demographic and economic profiles of Hispanics in the United States by their countries of origin.

More than 6.6 million Latinos voted in last year’s election—a record for a midterm. Fueled by their rapid population growth, Latinos also were a larger share of the electorate in 2010 than in any previous midterm election, representing 6.9% of all voters, up from 5.8% in 2006.