Early Tuesday at White Memorial Medical Center, Gloria Mejia reminded her 18-year-old daughter, Catalina Meza, that she had a chance to make history.
If Meza could just push a little harder, her mother told her, the little girl she was about to give birth to had a shot at being the 300 millionth American.
“Andale apurate”–come on, hurry up, Mejia said excitedly in Spanish. “Your baby could be the one!”
More Top Picks Best Walking Shoes For Lower Back Pain
Anareli entered the world at 5:10 a.m. PDT–24 minutes after the moment the U.S. Census bureau had estimated the United States population would reach 300 million.
“We won!” patients and nurses at White Memorial shouted.
Not exactly.
Employing a complex and highly subjective set of calculations, the Census Bureau had set Oct. 17 at 4:46 a.m. PDT as the moment the country would cross the milestone.
But census officials emphasized Tuesday that the date and time are just guesses, and it has no plans to designate a 300 millionth American.
But that didn’t stop folks at White Memorial and elsewhere from celebrating.
In New York City, officials at Queens’ Elmhurst Hospital Center proclaimed Emmanuel Plata No. 300,000,000, claiming she was born precisely at 7:46 a.m. EDT by Caesarean section. Beforehand, the hospital had T-shirts and blankets made for the baby and mother with “300 millionth American Baby” printed on them.
“It’s not like a census official came and put a sticker on the baby. We just took the opportunity,” said Chris Constantino, the executive director of Elmhurst. “We stake our claim to it, but any one else can too.” A few hours after the New York press descended on the Queens medical center, New York Presbyterian Hospital announced that its doctors had delivered a baby girl at exactly 7:46 a.m.
But Elmhurst wasn’t backing down.
“What better place than New York City?” Constantino said.
The folks at White Memorial would have an answer to that.
The medical staff has followed the news coverage about the 300 millionth American for several days. Because they serve a neighborhood with a large population from Mexico, they were particularly intrigued by speculation from demographers that the person would be an immigrant.
But Catalina Meza said that in the moments after her baby was born–with a touch of bronchitis–she didn’t think much about any number.
“My mother told me to hurry. But the truth is, it didn’t really matter to me,” Catalina Meza said as she nuzzled her baby against her cheek. “I just wanted my baby to be born healthy. And now I’m happy because my daughter is well.”
———-
ONLINE
For more on the shifts in U.S. population, go to chicagotrib une.com/census300