( CNN ) -- Once upon a time , the Latino presence in the United States was largely a regional phenomenon , and outside the Southwest , a big-city one . Mexicans and Mexican-Americans were concentrated in the border and Western states , with an outpost in the Great Lakes states ; Cubans in South Florida and the Northeast ; Puerto Ricans in New York and its suburbs . Certainly not exclusively , but the pattern was largely in place by World War II and remained that way for decades . Then , a couple of things happened . As any student of history can tell you , events do n't pass in some orderly procession , but happen in bunches and ricochet around the country . The immigration laws were rewritten , swinging the axis of new arrivals away from Europe -- after more than a century of enormous human flows from that continent -- to Latin America , Asia and Africa . New suburbs sprang up on America 's urban peripheries , the national economy grew rapidly , and Latin America suffered both economic stagnation and Cold War-accelerated political turmoil . Whew ! Dominicans poured into the Northeast , mostly to New York , escaping instability and poverty back home . Puerto Ricans saw their fortunes sink with those of their mainland capital of New York , and headed to Connecticut , New Jersey and Pennsylvania looking for a better life , while new arrivals from the island increasingly headed for booming Florida . Miami shifted from being a Cuban home away from home to becoming a financial and cultural capital of Latin America . And Mexicans , the largest of Latin America 's constituent groups , spread everywhere , establishing new beachheads in cities large and small , in fading industrial towns and agricultural centers . They grew in places that had long been home , like Los Angeles and San Antonio , while tiny settlements became bustling communities in places as disparate as Washington state 's Yakima Valley ; Dalton , Georgia ; and the Caribbean stronghold of New York City . Big things are happening both in the raw numbers of Latinos inside the United States , zooming past 50 million in the 2010 Census , and inside those numbers in distinct communities . Cubans are no longer a majority among the Latinos of Florida , as large numbers of Puerto Ricans concentrate in midstate counties around Orlando , and Caribbeans and South and Central Americans continue to flock to Miami-Dade . As Puerto Ricans continue to disperse through the Northeast , Dominicans may soon come to outnumber them in a place where Boricuas once lived in numbers that rivaled San Juan . This story is perhaps most stunning in the Southeast , in the states of the Confederacy . Through most of American history , the states from Texas to Virginia were among the most uniformly native-born places in the U.S . There was no southern Ellis Island era , no great wave of arrivals crowding ethnic ghettoes in Richmond , Birmingham , and Atlanta . Now the increases in the Latino population are being measured in hundreds of percentage points . The governor of Georgia appoints a commission on Latino affairs . School districts that never did so in their history now must hire teachers of English as a second language . Latinos are unique among American immigrants . Unlike the Italians , Irish , and Poles , and the Jews of Eastern Europe , they were already long-settled inhabitants of what would become the United States when the Declaration of Independence was written . America came to them in the form of purchase , invasion , and annexation . Then , later , when the modern borders of the continent-spanning superpower were established , Latinos came from their own countries too . It gave Latinos a unique cultural deposit in this country as it was forming , and a role to play in defining the culture in 2013 and for generations to come . Understanding the last 500 years will help you understand your country and your country 's history better , and it is indispensable for making sense of what 's to come . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Ray Suarez .
Latinos were already living in what would become the U.S. before the nation existed . U.S. Latino population is growing fast , and traditional demographic patterns are shifting . Once , Latino presence was mainly in a few regions , but that has changed dramatically . The largest Hispanic populations live in California ( > 1 million ), Texas ( < 500,000 ), New York City ( ~500k ), Florida ( ~ 300K ), Arizona ( ~200K )