Evansville region growing more diverse, 2020 Census finds

EVANSVILLE, Ind. — Kori Miller laughs when he remembers the funny looks people gave him when he returned to Evansville in 2017 from Los Angeles.

Miller, 65, had gone West years before with a band that had a record deal and big dreams, and he stayed to work for nonprofits in LA.

Then he retired to come home and care for his mother.

"What are ... you were in LA. Why’d you come back?" Miller, now executive director of the Evansville African American Museum, remembers people saying. "They looked at me like I was crazy."

Miller, an Evansville native, saw a lot more culture in LA than Evansville and ran with a much more ethnically and racially diverse group of friends out there. It's LA.

But Evansville was a little more LA when he returned all those years later, Miller said. He was struck by the difference.

"I can see that there’s been a lot of changes here. Definitely in multiracial families — a major increase," he said.

That's what the first batch of 2020 census figures reflects, too. With their multiracial population growth and notable declines in the white population, Evansville and Vanderburgh County and surrounding counties are more diverse than they were even a decade ago.

And not just racially. Vanderburgh's count of Hispanic or Latino residents rose 63% to just over 6,300 — making up 3.5% of the county population.

It mirrors census data in much of the rest of the country.

The data, released Thursday, includes limited statistics on population, race and housing, showing how demographics have shifted across the country since 2010. More detailed data — including information on income, transportation and family makeup — will be released later.

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Vanderburgh County and the city of Evansville, where two-thirds of the county's population of 180,136 resides, are seeing expansions of their Hispanic, Black and Asian American populations, growing numbers of multiracial residents — and fewer white residents.

White people remain the most prevalent race or ethnic group in Evansville — but they are 75% of the city's population, down from 82% in 2010. Blacks, the second-largest population group, comprise nearly 14% of city residents. It's 1% higher than 2010.

In the county as a whole, whites are just short of 81% of the population — down from slightly more than 86% in 2010. Blacks are now 9.8% of the county's population. The figure was just above 9% in 2010.

The second-biggest nonwhite group reporting significant increases locally is people who identified themselves as being more than one race. They are 7% of the city population, up from less than 3% in 2010, and 6% of the county population, almost triple their 2010 numbers.

Evansville is still less diverse than the nation as a whole.

Nationwide, the white, non-Hispanic population, without another race, decreased by 8.6% since 2010, according to the new data from the 2020 census. The U.S. is now 61.6% white, 12.4% Black, 6% Asian and 10.2% of "two or more" races (multiracial) with other racial groups comprising the rest. Ethnicity data shows 18.7% report they are Hispanic or Latino.

Evansville is 75.3% white, 13.6% Black, 1.2% Asian and 7% multiracial with other racial groups comprising the rest. 4.3% in the city report they are Hispanic or Latino.

Demographic changes happen over time, in ways large and small.

The number of Pacific Islanders in Vanderburgh County went from 104 in 2010 to 684 in 2020, a whopping 558% increase. It likely reflects an influx of people here from the Marshall Islands, a sprawling strip of hot, sandy volcanic islands between Australia and Hawaii.

It's a bigger community here than many local residents might think, given the components: on one hand a nation of 1,200 islands in the Pacific Ocean, and on the other a landlocked Southern Indiana city.

Evansville resident Debbie Burns, who spent two years in the Marshall Islands, and local resident Carlos Caballero, who spent two years studying the health care practices of Evansville's Marshallese population for a master's degree, told the Courier & Press last year that Evansville is home to at least 1,000 Marshallese people.

It's not that difficult to come here from there, thanks to an agreement created when the Marshall Islands gained independence from the United States in 1986. The pact, intended as settlement for damages incurred during the post-World War II nuclear weapons testing program, allows Marshallese citizens to live and work in the U.S. without a visa.

"The factory jobs around the Tri-State attract them," Caballero said. "The accepting culture attracts them here. When the Marshallese people like a certain community, all they have to do is call their relatives in the Marshall Islands and say, ‘Hey, come on over here; we’ll find you a job.'"

It's the affordable housing, city official says

Kelley Coures rattles off a list of affordable housing developments that have come to the city over the past decade.

"The effort to build more affordable homes attracts people who are of a lower income, and we know from the data that median Black household income is 60% of overall median household income," said Coures, the city's metropolitan development director, citing a city study conducted in 2017.

The Jacobsville neighborhood has seen notable growth in its Black population. Census tract 21 on the eastern edge of Jacobsville, is 75% white but it has seen an increase of 82% in its Black population. It has Garvin Lofts and Garfield Commons, projects of ECHO Housing Corp.

"It has quite a bit of growth in Habitat (for Humanity) dwellings," Coures said. "That's where the migration to Jacobsville has happened, with Habitat's development there."

It's not a mass of people — from 167 in 2010 to 304. But 82% growth is 82% growth.

Other tracts in the city show significant growth in minority populations since 2010 — again, Coures said, because of affordable housing developments. Census tract 26, north of Division Avenue between North Main and U.S. 41, saw its Black population rise from 345 to 592 — a nearly 72% increase. Other racial groups had even larger increases. White population there is down 13%.

And then, there are people like Kori Miller, who left LA to come back home and take care of his mother. It happens.

"A lot of people just move back home again," Coures said.

Other area counties see mostly the same trends

Multiracial population growth and loss of white population weren't just Vanderburgh County trends.

Warrick County, which had the area's most substantial overall population growth in the last decade, saw a nearly 2% increase to its white population — but much larger increases in other racial groups. Its Black population went up nearly 32%, Asians 71% and "two or more" races 251%. 

Warrick is the region's second-largest county with 63,898 people in 2020. Those identifying as two or more races make up almost 4.4% of the population, according to the census, followed by Asian at nearly 2.6% and Black at nearly 1.7%. Nearly 2.2% of the population identified their ethnicity as Latino. 

Here's what happened in other nearby counties: 

• Posey County, with a population just over 25,000, saw a nearly 6% drop in its white population from 2010 to 2020. Posey's tiny Black, American Indian and Pacific Islander populations also dropped, but those losses were more than offset by increases in other racial and ethnic populations.
• Gibson County saw increases to all nonwhite racial and ethnic groups, with residents reporting two or more races rising by 156%. Gibson County's white population declined 5%.
• Henderson County, Kentucky, saw its white population shrink by nearly 9%, a nearly 2% increase to its Black population and a 191% increase in those reporting two or more races.

The race and ethnicity questions

The 2020 Census used two separate questions to calculate race and ethnicity. One question focused on Hispanic or Latino origin. The other question focused specifically on race. 

The questionnaire included write-in boxes for Black or African American respondents for the first time, allowing them to list whether they are Haitian or Jamaican or Somali, for example. The surveys included similar boxes for white residents, allowing them to write in Lebanese or Egyptian or Italian.

Nicholas Jones, the director of race, ethnicity, research and outreach for the Census Bureau's population division, said it makes the 2020 census a better census.

“The improvements and changes enable a more thorough and accurate depiction of how people self-identify, yielding a more accurate portrait of how people report their Hispanic origin and race within the context of a two-question format,” Jones said.