Hispanic Influence Growing in the Tri-State

The latest head count of Americans shows Hispanics as the fastest growing minority.

The census bureau says one out of seven Americans is Hispanic and the nation's largest minority group accounted for one-half of the country's population growth in the past year.

Learning Spanish to communicate to a new customer base. It's something many Owensboro businesses or residents didn't think they'd have to do ten years ago. Jason Niehaus is a branch manager with BB&T bank. "We've had an instructor come from the local colleges to help us and we had two classes and the first class we had 12 employees go through it and the second class we had 20 employees go through it."

Niehaus says BB&T bank has invested thousands of dollars in bilingual brochures, signage, and software in automatic teller machines. "That's something that we take great pride in is trying to learn more about the Hispanic culture and try to learn some more of the terminology in the Spanish language."

Other businesses are getting into the act. Home Depot is changing their signs to reach out to Hispanic buyers. Owensboro businesses are also advertising in the local Hispanic newspaper.

Recent U.S. census bureau numbers support the change, estimating at least 41.3 million Hispanics live in the country. Sister Larraign Lauter of La Plaza in Owensboro says, "These numbers are probably very underestimated."

Lauter helps many Hispanics adapt to American culture. She says the numbers only represent those who cooperate with the census. "Historically, Hispanics, undocumented Hispanics, haven't really cooperated with the census for a number of reasons most likely out of fear and very likely this is a very conservative estimate."

The size of the Hispanic population rose in nearly every state in the 1990's. Also, the census bureau projected last year that white and minority overall would be roughly equal in size by 2050.

What are people saying about mortgages today:

Rates on 30-year mortgages edged down last week to a seven-month low. Mortgage-giant Freddie Mac reported Thursday that 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages fell to 6.3 percent, down slightly from 6.31 percent two weeks ago. It put rates at the lowest level since they were at 6.24 percent the first week of March.

Bank of Hawaii, Central Pacific Bank, Territorial Savings Bank and Wells Fargo Home Mortgages all cut their 30-year mortgage rates to 5.75 percent this week.

Most people think of a mortgage as a means to an end. After all, you buy a house, not a home loan. But a mortgage is much more than the path to homeownership. It is a financial instrument that must be managed, just like any other financial investment.