Census forms and race - Page 2

[eclipse]

Originally Posted by MadiMamacita

http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-po...racial-society

(I'll keep it short and sweet- I'm talking like the sweedish chef today!)

Great article - thanks.

[USAmma]

I was surprised they used the word "Negro" on it . . but anyway . . .

You are what you think you are- and if you don't know and it only matters more to the Census Bureau than to him then he should just try his best. Wasn't there one on there for "don't know"? If not he could check "other" and write in "don't know" and check off whatever else applies to him.

I was glad they did have multiple boxes to check! My half-Indian/half-white kids usually have to choose one or the other. My oldest always checks "Indian/Asian" but my youngest so far is officially "white" since that's what is on her birth certificate. She can decide to change that when she's older if she likes.

[crittersmom]

My roomate and I had an easier time filling this out last time they really made some mistakes this time.They assumed if you are Native American you only belong to one tribe,my "primary" would be Cherokee and DH is Apache so ummm our kids are mixed but there is only space for one tribe.the Negro line ticked me off neither my Great Grandma nor my Grandma considered themselves Negro who were they trying to include/exclude?I crossed it out everywhere I saw it.
Guess the cranky pregnant lady shouldn't have filled it out but geesh where I live now it's assumed you are mixed and it's not a big hassle to aknowlege it.

[tanyalynn]

Originally Posted by USAmma

I was surprised they used the word "Negro" on it . . but anyway . . .

I don't remember if it was an article I read, or a news story I saw on TV, but the intent of using the word Negro is apparently to target some of the older generation of black people, they thought that some self-identified as Negro, so they added it in. I don't know what different category people would've ended up in instead, maybe some folks would've skipped the question altogether? They weren't clear on that, but they felt it was a generational issue.

[joates]

Originally Posted by Jaesun's Dad

Which points out the head scratcher I encountered filling mine out



I'm part Spanish, as in Spain, but certainly never considered myself Hispanic. I just put [x] White for myself and both [x] White, [x] Korean for my son. I'm still baffled as to why Spaniard is included there.

Hispanic is not a race, and the reason that many of the countries we think of as hispanic are hispanic due to Spaniards conquering these areas. Most of the places we are looking at were ruled by Spain.

So since hispanic is not a race, you can be both European and Hispanic.

[joates]

Originally Posted by LoMaH

Yes, I know what you mean. But, since there's a difference between coming from a Latin American Spanish-speaking country than having Spanish ancestry from Europe, the term is used inaccurately and just adds to the confusion, I think.

If we follow along that line of thinking: multi-generational Americans and Canadians would all be referred to as Anglos, simply because they speak English.
We don't put the Brazilians and the Portuguese in the same group.
The racial categories in this Census are the worst ever, IMO.

But many Brazilians speak Portuguese, it's the official language there, and their racial classifications are significantly different than in America. There I'm a completely different race than I am here in America.

In America anything European is white, and that is only a fairly recent definition. Think about it, most black people are mixed race, but we just use the American definition of black, completely ignoring that most black people with slave ancestry are on average between 25% and 50% other (be it native american, caucasian, etc.). Our racial designations here are kind of strange. It is essentially a "white vs. other" type dichotomy, where folks vie to become part of the mainstream, explaining why Irish and Italian people went from being minorities to being simply "white" in a relatively short period of time.

Since hispanic is not a race, but rather a term used to denote culture and people of various countries, why would Spain not be included, considering the strong influence Spain has had on the countries we typically think of as "hispanic"?

[Mosaic]

According to the Census, the term "Hispanic" as specifically excludes Spain. But the form is worded "Hispanic, Latino, or of Spanish origin", so they would still check 'yes' for that one.

[Jaesun's Dad]

The specific question is

Is person # of Hispanic, Latino or Spanish origin 
[_] No, not of Hispanic, Latino or Spanish origin
[_] Yes, Mexican, Mexican Am., Chicano
[_] Yes, Puerto Rican
[_] Yes, Cuban
[_] Yes, another Hispanic, Latino or Spanish origin - Print origin, for example
          Argentinian, Colombian, Dominican, Nicaraguan, Salvadoran, Spaniard, and so on

So I guess technically I am the last box ... or 1/4 of the last box ... which gets even more confusing ... and my son is 1/8 Spaniard so do we count him too?

I work with demographic data for a living and this confuses the heck out of even me. For our employment data we have these classifications under "Ethnicity/Race": Asian, Black/African American, Caucasian, Hispanic/Latino, Native American/Alaskan Native, Pacific Islander/Hawaiian Native, and Two or More Races.

[LoMaH]

Originally Posted by joates

But many Brazilians speak Portuguese, it's the official language there, and their racial classifications are significantly different than in America. There I'm a completely different race than I am here in America.

In America anything European is white, and that is only a fairly recent definition. Think about it, most black people are mixed race, but we just use the American definition of black, completely ignoring that most black people with slave ancestry are on average between 25% and 50% other (be it native american, caucasian, etc.). Our racial designations here are kind of strange. It is essentially a "white vs. other" type dichotomy, where folks vie to become part of the mainstream, explaining why Irish and Italian people went from being minorities to being simply "white" in a relatively short period of time.

Since hispanic is not a race, but rather a term used to denote culture and people of various countries, why would Spain not be included, considering the strong influence Spain has had on the countries we typically think of as "hispanic"?

Yes. That's what I'm saying. Just because the official language of Brazil is Portuguese, doesn't mean that all Brazilians have Portuguese ancestry. Just like all Americans don't have English ancestry. All Hispanics don't have ancestry from Spain.

So, even though Hispanics come from (or their ancestry comes from) Spanish speaking countries and Spain has greatly influenced Latin-American culture, it's not one in the same.
The same way we don't call the British -Americans- simply because we Americans speak English due to their historical influence on the US. Our English is American English and our culture is unique to that of England.

Yes, there's no international definition of race. The definition of race is dynamic and everchanging.

Regarding the definition of White in the US, the last Census' definition was that if 75% of your ancestry comes from the geographical regions of Europe, the Middle East, or Northern Africa, then you can identify as white. Even though, in conversation, most people define white as fully European.

Keep in mind that historically in the US, there have been many court cases that have tried to determine a person's race. (esp. when schools were legally segregated by race and there were anti-miscegenation laws that prevented biracial marriages. During those cases, the definition of white wasn't always defined by the one drop rule or having to be 100% European background (even from state to state). You could cross state lines and suddenly be a member of a different race.
Aren't there people who self-identify as white who have some Native American ancestry.
So, yeah, it's hard to wrap one's head around the whole thing.

There are many factors to racial identification, trying to put everyone into a nice little box just doesn't work well.

I personally agree with USMamma, that each person (esp. the "mixed" race) should be allowed to identify as they want to.

[YvonneC-M]

This topic takes me back to my days as a graduation student in anthropology, when we discussed how race is not a biological fact, but a cultural invention. That's why the categories and dividing lines vary so much and are so disputed. When the U.S. acquired what's now the American Southwest from Mexico, it suddenly found itself in the dilemma of having a large population that was clearly neither white nor black. At first, Mexicans were legally defined as white, but that meant they could own land and enjoy all the other privileges of being white, so that categorization was rescinded, and things only got more and more complicated after that.

My DD is half Latina (1/4 Cuban, 1/4 Peruvian) and half Tswana (southern Africa), so I had a field day checking off boxes on the census form. My pen just about ran out of ink!

RE: Should "Spaniard" be included under "Hispanic"? I say no. In my interpretation, "Hispanic" is an umbrella term for every racial combination that resulted from Spanish colonization of the New World. Spaniards themselves are Europeans, ie, non-Hispanic whites.

[Happiestever]

I just check hispanic for myself and the kids because my father was from Nicaragua, but as far as race we are white. I even check white for DH who is from Tunisia. I just roll my eyes at the options and move on.