I was in about the 8th grade when the teacher told us by such and such a date America would be some crazy sounding percentage Hispanic. Our school was white with only one or two Latinos. One side of town had them in droves but that was an isolated world away. Fort Worth, Texas wasn't bilingual like Laredo at all, which I thought was exotic and cool. But the prediction that seemed so improbable back then must have been a forward looking plan. How the teacher knew this would happen never dawned on me back then. It took decades for illegals to be tolerated at all. There was a lot of prejudice against even long time citizens of Mexican heritage in Abilene of the 70's when I was back that way briefly. Illegals were rounded up and shipped home off and on but it was wink and nod for sure.
