ABSTRACT
Twenty-five years ago, when the U.S. Commission on Population Growth and the American Future issued its final report to President Nixon, fertility issues dominated the recommendations. On October 27, 1995, at a 25-year retrospective on the Commission’s report held on Capitol Hill in Washington DC, the issue of immigration took center stage. To the extent that the fertility behavior of American women remained of concern, the fertility of immigrant women was highlighted. The only speaker to emphasize the growth of the U.S. population as a major issue was not a demographer but rather Congressman Anthony Beilenson, Democrat from California. The congressman seemed to be aware that births in California had risen from a low of 337,000 in 1975 to over 600,000 in 1992, with more than one fourth of all births in California in 1992 to women born in Mexico (Burke, 1995). If a new commission on population were to be empowered in the mid-1990s, its mandate would be greatly influenced by recent immigration trends.
