THE CHILDREN ARE OUR FUTURE:

When Eva Castillo came to the United States from her home country of Venezuela, she wasn't planning to stay. But life happened. She met her husband, a Manchester native, and over the years the city has become her home.

Castillo has been working for decades to help other immigrants who come to the state feel at home here, too - now as the director of the New Hampshire Alliance for Immigrants and Refugees.

It turns out that's no easy task - but it may be more important than ever.

Recent census data shows that the state is diversifying fast. For the first time, less than 90 percent of New Hampshire residents are white; in the past 10 years alone, the percentage of white residents has dropped from 94 percent to 87 percent.

And among the child population in the state, the shift is even more dramatic. New Hampshire's population of minority children has grown by almost 50 percent, or about 16,800 more children of color between 2010 and 2021. Now, minorities make up 20.2 percent of the population under 18. In Nashua and Manchester, that number is over 30 percent.

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