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1. September 2006 New Demographic Newsletter at New Demographic - an anti-racism training company on 06 Sep 2006 at 10:54 am

   […] The Department of Education announced that it would finally enforce the ability for students to check more than one race on all federal forms. But Jen points out how problematic it is that those who choose more than one will be listed under “two or more races,” but those races will not be specified. […]

Comments

1. April wrote:

   I feel you one this one, I really do. One of the biggest issues I foresee in this debate is whether or not multiracial categories will somehow be used by mainstream America to be colorblind to race. As said earlier in one of the posts here, people often play the “I don’t see race” card. Having the opportunity to fully express myself being half black and half white on a national form is awesome. I just wonder if the cost of watering down “race” will come at a cost. I’m just wondering what will happen. I would have to read up on other countries that have done similar (if they exist). What would they have done? What were the outcomes for them? Comparative analysis would help on this front. I would love to see you guys do a story on that. Perhaps this would be an excellent topic on Addicted to Race.

   Posted 10 Aug 2006 at 9:54 am ¶

2. Jennifer wrote:

   Being mixed-raced for me wasn’t understood in high school. When filing out those forms, I wouldn’t indicate my race because the instructions always said, “Pick one.” There wasn’t even an “other” box. Anyhow, because of the lack of choices, I did not indicate my race. One day, I get called into the front office. The secretary tells me, “You didn’t fill out your form. Please indicate that you’re white.” I told the lady, “I’m not only white, I’m Asian. I can’t deny being both.” She told me, “Well, usually minority wins out, so just put in there that you’re Asian.”

   I felt okay with it at the time, but I hate not acknowledging what I am. If I’m half this and half that, might as well be White and Asian. I have no problem with being both, but in response to this new process (being able to indicate what you are on the Federal form), it definitely is a step forward, but for those who are Hispanic and something else, it’s highly annoying.

   Posted 10 Aug 2006 at 11:21 am ¶

3. Jennifer wrote:

   Just to add to what you said April, if America becomes “blind” to race, what happens to all the opportunities for minorities? There are scholarships and grants offered to minorities because they are African American, Hispanic, Asian, etc. Some whites complain about this because it makes it harder for them to get any sort of financial aide for school. But the beauty about America (at least partly because we still have a long way to go) is that there are opportunities for minorities. I’m wondering, though, if these opportunities are as abundant for mixed people as it is for minorities. Most of the time, mixed race people apply for scholarship in the minority category (ala, a Mexican/White applying for Mexican Heritage Scholarship). There aren’t that many offerings specifically geared toward mixed-race people. Anyone want to add to this?

   Posted 10 Aug 2006 at 11:28 am ¶

4. Stefanie wrote:

   So, I was going to bring this up on the White Savior thread re: Antonio Banderas, but I think it’s appropriate here as well.

   My question is: Is “Hispanic” a race catagory? Or does it just depend on who you ask? This is the problem I have with “race”; we use the same words but often are talking about such different things. Can I get some operational definitions here? I know race is a man-made construct, and I guess the definitions are pretty subjective.

   When I was an ennumerator (sorry if my spelling sucks) for the 2000 Census, the section on “Hispanics” was so long. But it was then that I kind of formed the impression that “Hispanic” is more of a cultural denotation (”derrived from Spain” is what the word is supposed to mean, no?), than a race category. So if you have Spanish cultural traditions (language, food, religion. etc.), but are not Spanish, you are Hispanic. (As this is applied to peoples of the Americas usually, Antonio Banderas would be more properly labeled “Spanish” than “Hispanic”, right?)

   Racially speaking, you can be a White Hispanic (over 90% of Costa Ricans self identify as White, contrasting themselves from the populations of their neighboring countries. Don’t know that American Whites would always see them as White, too–there’s a separation in people’s minds of “Whites” and “Hispanics”, as though you can’t be both). Or you could be a Black Hispanic, like my husband’s older family members, who are from Venezuela. The family has lost the “Spanish” traditions as the newer generations have come, so though he has the name, I don’t think my husband would really fall into the “Hispanic” category. And what a lot of Americans think of when they encounter the term “Hispanic” is the Amerindian race or a mix thereof (Meztizo).

   Where it gets tricky in terms of things like Federal questionaires is that the cultural “Hispanic” term somehow trumps the individual’s racial identity, to those asking the questions, anyway. So, just as multiracial individuals can be any number of different races, yet are often lumped into one category, so are Hispanics.

   This is just the way I have made sense of things thus far. Do I have it right?

   Posted 10 Aug 2006 at 4:37 pm ¶

5. Lyonside wrote:

   Stefanie - IMO you’re not wrong. My father in law looks, basically, like a stereotypical little old Italian man (he’s in his 70s). He has a light tan, but very European features. My mother in law is definitely more “mixed,” and has stereotypical “Hispanic” (i.e. mestizo) features. My husband and his sisters have similar coloring, ranging between their parents’ skin tones. They all have the same hair and eye color (brownish).

   My husband grew up as a kid thinking the family was Italian (yep, the FIL has hangups, and this was his way to avoid potential discrimination). In many situations, he’s perceived as “white,” so I guess even with his tan, he’d check “white Hispanic.” It’s messed up and doesn’t tell you anything in the long run - it’s more helpful, perhaps, to list ethnic origin (i.e. home country or region, if country is unknown). There is an ethnic and historical difference between the Caribbean, eastern South American, western South America, Central America, Mexico, etc. The overarching CULTURE is influenced by a mix of African, Spanish/Portuguese European, and Native traditions, foods, and cultural expressions - that to me is what Hispanic means, regardless of skin color or other physical features.

   Posted 10 Aug 2006 at 4:51 pm ¶

6. Meg wrote:

   Slightly off topic maybe but in australia we’ve just had the census - lke 3 days ago and there are NO “racial” categories on the form. Rather the question goes “What is the person’s ancestry?” You can pick up to TWO only. English, Irish, Italian, German, Chinese, Scottish, Australian or Other and there’s space for you to fill in the name. I don’t know how this data ends up being interpreted but for me the main issue is that to select Australian becomes a de facto way of saying that you’re white, asian people i’ve spoken to feel uncomfortable saying australian (even if they’re citizens and been here for ages) so they select chinese, etc. I think this could end up problematic because there’s no distinction between someone who is chinese australian and someone who is biracial.

   Would be interested if you guys find this type of questioning preferable to asking someone’s race

   Posted 10 Aug 2006 at 10:15 pm ¶

7. Stefanie wrote:

   I don’t think that type of questioning is preferable at all, especially the limiting to two responses only. It strikes me as odd, and yet it’e interesting to see how different countries categorize people in different ways…

   I’d be curious to see what Australia planns to do with this information. Why would it make a difference to know if someones ancestors came from England vs. Scotland? I would have taken the “Australian” category as a de facto way of saying “aborigonal”. Wouldn’t the Eusopean countries be taken for “White”?

   Posted 11 Aug 2006 at 1:26 pm ¶

8. Ben wrote:

   “ Lumping all mixed respondents into one category (”two or more races”) isn’t going to help us to really get a good sense of what the demographics really look like.”

   In 2000, only 2.4% of Americans chose to identify with more than one race. So it doesn’t make sense to split it up further – right now, we get a good sense of what 98.5% of the demographics really look like.

   “[Lumping all mixed respondents into one category] helps to further the assumption that all mixed people are one in the same and would like to be lumped together in our own separate category.”

   True enough, but this is no worse than the assumption that all white people (remember, that’s people from Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa) are one and the same and would like to be lumped together in their own category.

   “Apparently, the US Census has modified its race question on *every* census. This shows how much this country struggles with racial classification.”

   I use the same premise to reach the opposite conclusion: the flexibility of the Census shows that the government is constantly adjusting in correspondence with the shifting demographics of our country.

   The Census was never meant to DEFINE racial or ethnic categories any more than it was meant to define the number of people that should be living in a given area. It’s a reasonably efficient tool for *measuring and describing*, with reasonable accuracy, the 300,000,000 people that live here. I think the freedom to identify precisely as we choose is wonderful and important, but it’s completely unrealistic to expect data collectors not to collapse the data into a less cumbersome array.

   Posted 11 Aug 2006 at 10:15 pm ¶

9. Damie_Troy wrote:

   I wish people wouldn’t take racial/ethnic boxes seriously as being genetic truth, because the government admits they’re not scientifically based, their made for politics.

   Posted 14 Aug 2006 at 9:22 pm ¶

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