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Latino baby boom in post-Katrina New Orleans

12:42 H | Topics: Children - Immigration - Mexico

When the dust had barely settled in post-Katrina New Orleans, the city was already buzzing with anti-immigrant rhetoric as a result of an influx of Mexican workers contracted to help in the clean-up efforts. Now it seems that this chain of events has led to an unexpected demographic change in the area -- a Latino baby boom:

A little more than a year after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans is seeing a boom in its Latino population, with many coming to help reconstruct the city.

Health officials had not anticipated the surge in the city's Latino population, The New York Times reported.

In a demographic twist, hundreds of Latino babies are being born in New Orleans to immigrant Latino workers, both legal and illegal. In a city largely abandoned by its doctors after the storm, this new population adds a financial strain to the already struggling city.

According to UPI, physicians are struggling to meet the rising demand for their services as a result of the birth of nearly 250 new babies per month.

Via / Playfuls.com

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