As a follow-up to the February report about how the nation is becoming much more racially diverse, here's a set of charts that visually show what is happening in Oregon.

The first chart above shows the key trend. Oregon has seen its minority population grow from 6 percent in 1980 to 22 percent today. And that will double, to 44 percent, by 2060, according to projections made in "States of Change," a report by Ruy Teixeira, William Frey and Rob Griffin.

Oregon is projected to become more diverse than many states that have long had sizable minority populations, including Arkansas, Michigan, Tennessee, Missouri, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

"That's not your father's Oregon," said Teixeira, a fellow at the Century Foundation and the Center for American Progress, the latter of which was one of the main producers for the report.

Teixeira said in an interview that the Hispanic population is quickly increasing in a large number of states around the country, including in Oregon. Asians are also becoming a larger share of the population, particularly in the Pacific Rim states. African-Americans are projected to stay about the same as a share of the population in both Oregon and the U.S., he said.

The next chart shows that the state's electorate is also changing, although more slowly than the change in population. By 2060, nearly 40 percent of the electorate will be non-white, more than double its current mark of about 16 percent.

Meanwhile, Oregon's population of children is changing more rapidly than the state as a whole. Minorities now account for a third of the state's children -- up from less than 10 percent in 1980 -- and are projected to be a solid majority by 2060.

Lastly, the percentage of seniors in Oregon's electorate will rise to 28 percent by 2060, the report says. And those seniors will be more ethnically diverse than they are now.

Teixeira said the projections could be affected by many different factors, including immigration policy. But he said the projections are largely based on who is living in the U.S. now, not in-migration.

"It's the hand we're going to be dealt," he said, maintaining that policymakers need to figure out how to get the most -- educationally, socially and economically -- out of a population that will be much more diverse than our father's Oregon.

--Jeff Mapes

503-221-8209

@Jeffmapes