https://www.npr.org/2023/01/26/1151608403/mena-race-categories-us-census-middle-eastern-latino-hispanic
A new checkbox for "Middle Eastern or North African" and a "Hispanic or Latino" box that appears under a reformatted question asking for a person's race or ethnicity are among the early recommendations announced in a Federal Register notice, which was made available Thursday for public inspection ahead of its official publication.
If approved, the changes would address longstanding difficulties many Latinos have had in answering a question about race that does not include a response option for Hispanic or Latino, which the federal government recognizes only as an ethnicity that can be of any race.
The reforms would also mark a major achievement for advocates for Arab Americans and other MENA groups who have long campaigned for their own checkbox.
These changes are long overdue IMO.
The proposed changes are by the OMB. The minimal set is for all government agencies, including those who collect data by observation. This includes the Census Bureau when they use a neighbor for a proxy. The current minimal set treats Hispanic and Black as equivalent categories, instead of orthogonal. The proposed change would treat them the same for detailed responses, add MENA, and allow more detailed responses for each category.
Initial Proposals For Updating OMB's Race and Ethnicity Statistical StandardsDuring testing for the 2020 Census, the question that gave the best response was: Is
Emily ...
Check all that apply.
[ ] White
[ ] Hispanic
[ ] Black
[ ] Asian*
[ ] MENA
[ ] AIAN
[ ] NHOPI
[ ] Something Else
*The Census Bureau does not actually have an Asian response. They have a grouping of check boxes for Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Asian India, or some other group with a write-in space.
If someone wants to aggregate data for Asian Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Nepalis, and Sri Lankans, they can do so.
The smaller the group is, the less the Census Bureau can report because of differential privacy.
