Still Black or White: Why the Census Misreads Hispanics

[Lunar]

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1975883,00.html

Hispanic advocates often tell the story of a Census Bureau worker who visits a Puerto Rican household in New York City's East Harlem neighborhood. Seeing the family's caramel complexion, the Census taker asks which race he should put down for them — white or black. To which the family answers: "Puerto Rican."

The story could substitute a Mexican-American family — or Colombian- or Nicaraguan-American ones for that matter — but the gist would be the same. Many, if not most, Hispanics in the U.S. think of their ethnicity (also known as Latino) not just in cultural terms but in a racial context as well. It's why more than 40% of Hispanics, when asked on the Census form in 2000 to register white or black as their race, wrote in "Other" — and they represented 95% of all the 15.3 million people in the U.S. who did so.

An even larger share of Hispanics, including my Venezuelan-American wife, is expected to report "Other," "Hispanic" or "Latino" in the race section of the 2010 census forms being mailed to U.S. homes this month. What makes it all the more confusing if not frustrating to them is that Washington continues to insist on those forms that "Hispanic origins are not races." If the Census Bureau lists Filipino and even Samoan as distinct races, Hispanics wonder why they — the product of half a millennium of New World miscegenation — aren't considered a race too. "It's a very big issue," says Angelo Falcón, president of the National Institute for Latino Policy in New York City and a community adviser to the Census. "A lot of Hispanics find the black-white option offensive, and they're asserting their own racial uniqueness."

Nor are they alone. Arabs, who would seem to have an even stronger race claim than Hispanics do, are trumpeting their own write-in campaign because the Census by default counts them as white — and the bureau announced this week that it has no intention of changing that policy in 2010. Incredibly, the term Arab doesn't even appear on the census form, though other Asian ethnicities, like Indian, are listed as races. (Ironically, part of the problem is that Arab immigrants a century ago petitioned the Federal Government to be categorized as white to avoid discrimination. Today, Arab-American leaders realize how much that move has cost their community in terms of federal aid and legal clout.)

It's not easy being the Census agency for America's baroque melting pot. And to be fair, Falcón notes, the Census hasn't slighted Hispanics in this year's count. On the contrary, as if acknowledging that Hispanics are now the nation's largest minority, the bureau has given the group its own "Hispanic Origins" section. It even precedes the general race section on the questionnaire and, advocates say, promises to yield a more comprehensive tally of Hispanics for purposes of federal aid and civil rights protections. But many Hispanics are nonetheless irked when they go to the next section and find, yet again, that they're asked to identify themselves racially as white or black. (The other racial designations are Native American, Asian and Pacific Islander.)

Census officials say they're simply adhering to race-category standards laid out for all federal agencies in 1997 by the White House Office of Management and Budget, criteria they confirm will be re-evaluated before the 2020 census. (The Census that year will also be unlikely to retain Negro as a designation for African Americans; it is still on the 2010 form, a fact that has led to repeated apologies from the Census chief.) And Janet Murguia, president of the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic advocacy group in Washington, D.C., says the Hispanic race question so far "has been hard to reconcile scientifically."

Still, Maria Teresa Kumar, executive director of Voto Latino, a Hispanic civic organization based in Washington, D.C., worries because most Hispanics who do choose between white and black select white. That "risks leaving a mistaken impression that they enjoy certain socioeconomic opportunities we associate with whites in this country," says Kumar, "when in reality [Hispanics] are near the bottom in areas like education and upward mobility." As a result, groups like Voto Latino are encouraging Hispanics to write Hispanic or Latino in the "Other" space for race.

While Kumar, like Falcón, applauds the Census Bureau for the 2010 form's prominent Hispanic-origins feature, she feels the feds still fail to understand "how layered the Latino self-identity is" beyond just language. North Americans call Oct. 12 Columbus Day, but Latin Americans call it Dia de la Raza — Day of the Race — a recognition that 1492 began a commingling of primarily Iberian, native American and African blood that in turn produced a new race, sometimes called mestizo. That process was perhaps deepest in Mexico — and because Mexico is the origin country of almost two-thirds of U.S. Hispanics, that's a big reason why Washington needs to rethink its definition of race.
(Comment on this story.)

Many feel the Census also needs to fine-tune its idea of what is and isn't Hispanic. It tends to define Latin America as just the Spanish-speaking countries of the western hemisphere, when the term also encompasses Portuguese-speaking Brazil. It also includes Spaniards in the "Hispanic Origins" box, when in fact a Spaniard is a European, not a Hispanic.

All of this should prod the Census Bureau to simplify things for future counts. The Hispanic-origins and race sections should be combined into one, less confusing section that asks folks what ethnic and/or racial group they belong to: white, black, Native American, Asian, Pacific Islander or Hispanic. It should (as it already does for some groups on the form) provide space for designating subgroups — like Arabs, for example. (Many Jamaican- and Bahamian-Americans also feel the Census should list their Caribbean origins as a black subgroup.) And it should make clear that respondents can check more than one group. That matters in cases like that of blacks from Hispanic countries. Those Afro-Latinos have produced a video urging each other to check the black entry and not "Other" in the race section to ensure that Washington logs that reality as well as their Hispanic status.

Accommodating, if not promoting, multiple ethnic identification seems especially important at a time when a growing number of Americans — including their President — have mixed-race parentage. For our children's race, my wife and I simply write in Mixed for want of any better option on the census form. But in the 2020 census, we'd like them to be counted more precisely as progeny of both the Anglo race and the Latino raza.

[Linus Van Pelt]

"Race" in general is really pretty confused, once you leave South Carolina 1950 and encounter the multitude of ancestries and physical appearances that exist across the world.

But if we're in the slightly dubious business of using the concept, the Census is surely in the right: some people are of Hispanic origin and white (Lincoln Diaz-Balart) and some people are of Hispanic origin and not white (Carlos Delgado).

[muon2]

In terms of ancestry, most Hispanics in the US are as much Native American as any other race. Most can count native populations in Central and South America as ancestors. The Census however seems to reserve Native American for those whose ancestors inhabited the present US before the Europeans.

[minionofmidas]

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1975883,00.html

Hispanic advocates often tell the story of a Census Bureau worker who visits a Puerto Rican household in New York City's East Harlem neighborhood. Seeing the family's caramel complexion, the Census taker asks which race he should put down for them — white or black. To which the family answers: "Puerto Rican."

The story could substitute a Mexican-American family — or Colombian- or Nicaraguan-American ones for that matter — but the gist would be the same. Many, if not most, Hispanics in the U.S. think of their ethnicity (also known as Latino) not just in cultural terms but in a racial context as well. It's why more than 40% of Hispanics, when asked on the Census form in 2000 to register white or black as their race, wrote in "Other" — and they represented 95% of all the 15.3 million people in the U.S. who did so.

The fool didn't even try to answer the question his headline poses.

The Census does so because a considerable number of Hispanics does identify as White (and a smaller number as Black) - and because very many of them would mark down only White and not Hispanic if the question were asked as race question. They've testrun that.

[Lunar]

I thought for a second I was the fool  I'm only "a" fool at worst!

But I find the question interesting.  I mean, I live in an overwhelmingly Puerto Rican neighborhood here in New York, and I don't think most of the people I see outside of my apartment would consider themselves either white or black Hispanics.  I would imagine many people think in terms of a Asian-White-Black-Hispanic paradigm, possibly with South Asian and Arabic thrown in, long before people start conceptualizing themselves in terms of white and black hispanics.

I mean, I guess the fundamental question is what you're trying to measure in the census.

[phk]

I thought for a second I was the fool  I'm only "a" fool at worst!

But I find the question interesting.  I mean, I live in an overwhelmingly Puerto Rican neighborhood here in New York, and I don't think most of the people I see outside of my apartment would consider themselves either white or black Hispanics.  I would imagine many people think in terms of a Asian-White-Black-Hispanic paradigm, possibly with South Asian and Arabic thrown in, long before people start conceptualizing themselves in terms of white and black hispanics.

I mean, I guess the fundamental question is what you're trying to measure in the census.

Cubans and Puerto Ricans readily self-ID as White or Black Hispanic.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Cool. I'll start giving a crap as soon as the census stops "correcting" same-sex marriage partners as "mistakes."

[ag]

Actually, I wonder how they classify those immigrants from Latin America for whom the first language is not Spanish. There are millions of native-language speakers in Mexico alone, and some of them do migrate. It would be ironic if a full blooded and Zapotec-speakin Zapotec is recorded as Hispanic

[Beet]

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125219716

[Lunar]

Cool. I'll start giving a crap as soon as the census stops "correcting" same-sex marriage partners as "mistakes."

Wasn't that a Bush policy?

Is Obama continuing that?

[Cubby]

Cool. I'll start giving a crap as soon as the census stops "correcting" same-sex marriage partners as "mistakes."

Wasn't that a Bush policy?

Is Obama continuing that?

Bush wasn't in office when the last Census was done, Clinton was responsible for it. I think it's because the DOMA (1996) is still (unfortunately) the law, and it applies to the Census as well. The 2000 Census was the first to acknowledge gays, it had a category for "Unmarried partners".

[minionofmidas]

I thought for a second I was the fool

I would not consider it worth posting just to restate that universally known fact.

[Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl]

So stop asking people to identify their race. The Constitution does not give the government the authority to ask that question. All these would problems would then be solved.

[Bleeding heart conservative, HTMLdon]

So stop asking people to identify their race. The Constitution does not give the government the authority to ask that question. All these would problems would then be solved.

The question was (indirectly) on the 1790 census, which I guess was also unconstitutional?

[jimrtex]

So stop asking people to identify their race. The Constitution does not give the government the authority to ask that question. All these would problems would then be solved.

The question was (indirectly) on the 1790 census, which I guess was also unconstitutional?

It was directly recorded in 1790.  In Maryland,

59.7% of families were white nonslaveholding.
36.5% were white slaveholding
3.6% were free colored nonslaveholding.
0.3% were free colored slaveholding.

The race of slaves was not recorded.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Incidentally, the reason why Arabs don't get an ethnicity of their own was that they originally didn't want one on the Census for fear that they would get lumped in with all the other second class non-White ethnic groups.  A century later and they find that getting what they originally wanted undone is hard to do.

[minionofmidas]

"They" being, of course, totally different groups. The Christian Lebanese of a century's standing in the Americas still want to be considered White.

[tallguy23]

If they used Caucasian instead of white I think results would be more accurate.

There has been big movements for certain groups in CA (Armenians, Iranians, etc) to check off "Other" and write in their ethnicity instead of checking off "White". Does anyone know if they'll still be counted as white? I heard that the majority of Hispanics are counted as white even if they check off other.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

If they used Caucasian instead of white I think results would be more accurate.

There has been big movements for certain groups in CA (Armenians, Iranians, etc) to check off "Other" and write in their ethnicity instead of checking off "White". Does anyone know if they'll still be counted as white? I heard that the majority of Hispanics are counted as white even if they check off other.

Caucasian properly means "of the Caucus region" so it would include Armenians, Circassians, etc. Its use as a broad racial category is archaic, and I would bet a large percentage of white people would not even recognize the term as supposed to be referring to them. The census does have an "Asian" category where it lists several nationalities and also an "Other Asian" line for people to write in. In that case they would be counted as Asian, whether they are Syrian or Japanese.

[Хahar 🤔]

Caucasian is a horrible term.

[tallguy23]

Caucasian is a horrible term.

Who do you say that Xahar?

[minionofmidas]

There has been big movements for certain groups in CA (Armenians, Iranians, etc) to check off "Other" and write in their ethnicity instead of checking off "White".

I doubt "caucasian" would change that. Race is a social construct subject to change. They (and the Arabs) are only sort of White, sort of Asian. (South Asians are now clearly considered Asian, but that used to be ambiguous too.) There's no separate "Middle Eastern" (or what have you) category, and I guess some Armenians and Libanese would still pick White then. And some lilywhite zionists might be tempted to check that option instead.

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No. They'll be counted as they report themselves.

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No. You heard false.The (bare) majority of Hispanics are counted as Hispanic and White because they check both. The large minority of Hispanics who check Hispanic and Other (and writing in Hispanic, Mexican, Mestizo, etc, or nothing at all) or who check no race, are counted as Hispanic and Other.
And an above-average share of Hispanics checks several races (usually White and Other).

[Alcon]

Why have Mexicans so rarely checked "American Indian"?  I certainly wouldn't expect it as often as Other, but I'm surprised it's so relatively infrequent.

[minionofmidas]

Why have Mexicans so rarely checked "American Indian"?  I certainly wouldn't expect it as often as Other, but I'm surprised it's so relatively infrequent.

Worth looking into.

Of course, it's not actually all that infrequent as a share of the Native American population. And languages and tribal affiliations from south of the border are picked up by the Census tables on those questions.

I did notice concentrations of Hispanic Native American reporters on and near some Pueblos... wonder who these people are, exactly.

[Lunar]

Why have Mexicans so rarely checked "American Indian"?  I certainly wouldn't expect it as often as Other, but I'm surprised it's so relatively infrequent.

Because "Mexican" and "American Indian" are completely different identities in our society, "American Indian" has really only ever been embraced by those tribes occupying the present borders of mainland United States.  Even in Alaska and Northern Canada, another term is used.  

In parts of South America, and I'm totally unqualified to speak about this, I remember that there's a class component to being Indian as opposed to being partly of European ancestry such that some with no European ancestry lie.