The composition: race and Hispanic origin, census by census

2000 — 2020, with the modern survey line

The modern composition is the fastest-moving line in the whole record, and it is printed here exactly as the neighborhoods file carries it, because the two files must never silently differ: Black Mishawaka's anchors are two graduates — Medora Powell, Mishawaka High School class of 1887, and her brother Farrow Raymond Powell, class of 1908 — and for the decades between and after them the record reached carries no city-level decennial counts before 2000; that extension backward is a named gap, stated in the Neighborhoods section with its settling sources (the NHGIS place-level race tables and the census volumes' own place tables), and it is carried here unchanged. The series as it stands: in the 2000 census (Summary File 1), Black Mishawaka counted 1,659 residents alone — 3.6 percent of the city's 46,557 — and 1,987 alone or in combination with another race, 4.3 percent. In 2010 the African American share stood at 6.9 percent of 48,252. In the 2020 census composition table, Black or African American residents counted 4,857 — 9.5 percent of 51,063 — beside White 39,414 (77.2 percent), American Indian and Alaska Native 222 (0.4 percent), Asian 1,440 (2.8 percent), Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander 22, some other race 1,056 (2.1 percent), and two or more races 4,052 (7.9 percent). Hispanic or Latino residents of any race counted 3,104 in 2020, 6.1 percent — against 4.5 percent of the population in 2010, the Hispanic series' two decennial points in the record reached.

Three further statements of the present composition stand in the record on three different bases, and they are printed as their makers' figures, not blended. The City of Mishawaka's own statistics page, read in November 2026, gives its community as Black alone 9.2 percent, White alone 80.1 percent and White non-Hispanic 76.7 percent — the city's own figures, on a different basis from the decennial table. The American Community Survey 2020–2024 profile counts a city of 51,021 with Black alone at 5,658 — 11.1 percent — alone-or-in-combination at 7,736, 15.2 percent, White alone 38,405 (75.3 percent), Asian alone 1,240 (2.4 percent), two or more races 4,752 (9.3 percent), and Hispanic or Latino 3,265 (6.4 percent) — a survey line, five years pooled, which runs ahead of the 2020 decennial line on the same direction of travel. And one published figure does not fit any table: the Hooligan Heights neighborhood history's "eight percent of Mishawaka's population is Black" as of the 2020 census, "up 100% from twenty years prior" — eight percent matches no single published table reached, though the doubling is roughly right on the alone-or-in-combination line from 4.3 percent in 2000 toward the 2020 figures; the Neighborhoods section prints it as that history's rounding, and this section carries the same disposition. The series' verdict, at the strength of its three decennial points, is plain: a city that counted 3.6 percent Black in 2000 counted 9.5 percent in 2020, with the survey line since running higher — the composition changed more in twenty years than the total did.

Sources:

1. Census 2000, Summary File 1, via InfoPlease — Black alone 1,659 (3.6 percent); alone or in combination 1,987 (4.3 percent); city total 46,557. 2010 Census composition, as published — African American 6.9 percent of 48,252; Hispanic or Latino 4.5 percent.
2. 2020 Census composition table (P.L. 94-171 basis, as published) — White 39,414; Black or African American 4,857; American Indian and Alaska Native 222; Asian 1,440; Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander 22; some other race 1,056; two or more races 4,052; Hispanic or Latino 3,104; total 51,063.
3. City of Mishawaka, Information and Statistics (mishawaka.in.gov), read November 2026 — Black alone 9.2 percent; White alone 80.1 percent; White non-Hispanic 76.7 percent, printed as the city's own figures. American Community Survey 2020–2024, Missouri Census Data Center profile — total 51,021; Black alone 5,658 (11.1 percent); alone or in combination 7,736 (15.2 percent); White alone 38,405; Asian 1,240; two or more races 4,752; Hispanic or Latino 3,265 (6.4 percent).
4. Neighborhoods section of this history — the count series with its counters named, the Hooligan Heights figure's disposition, and the pre-2000 gap with its settling sources, all conformed exactly.