Stuck on the 2010 Census race question
Posted on 17. Mar, 2010 by kchristieh in my life
Filling out the 2010 Census was as easy as promised until I got to Question 9: What is Person 1’s race? Mark one or more boxes.
Person #1, aka my husband, is Mexican-American, so Question 8: Is Person 1 of Hispanic, Latino or Spanish origin? was easy. From what we know of his heritage, he’s part-Spanish, part-Italian, part-Persian and like so many Mexicans, part-Native American. In fact, when he swabbed the inside of his cheek a few years ago and sent the cells off to a company that National Geographic worked with to perform a DNA test, it came back saying that his ancestors crossed the Bering Strait and traveled to South America.
Unfortunately, the choices for Question 9 discouraged us from picking American Indian, since it asks the name of the enrolled or principal tribe. Who knows how many eons ago his ancestors were part of an American Indian tribe? They were probably Aztecs or Mayans more recently, but that wasn’t a choice.
If he’d been Chinese, it would have been much easier. Question 9 separates out Asian Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese as different races. I consider them all to be Asian, though I appreciate that they have distinct cultures. On the other hand, if they’re looking to track distinct cultures, why don’t they track Arabs? I’m not the first to notice that omission.
I heard on the radio the other day that it wasn’t until Medieval times that people even really cared about race. (Although I’d bet some slaves would argue with that.) It’s sad that humans are hung up on the color of one’s skin. Perhaps the more that people get to know people of different races and intermarry, they’ll not only better appreciate what’s inside a person and not what’s on the outside, but it’ll be harder and harder to determine what race someone is. (Click here to see The Onion’s take on this.) Since it’s St. Patrick’s Day, maybe it would be easier if we were all Irish. Just kidding – it would be easy for me, but others might object.
By the way, he told me to mark White on the form. I will, but it only tells part of his story. At least Question 8 tells another part.
This came from an official censor worker:
\It is a \Self Identity\ question about heritage. You can mark whatever you feel is correct for yourself.
The race question is the same. My great great great grandfather was Jewish, yet I do not feel any Jewish identity\
Interesting research tactic.
Im Mexican American ,so question 9 what do I answer?? I am not white!!!
This whole CENSUS has refreshed my memory of why people in the U.S. feel discriminated against. My son is mixed with both hispanic and african american, but what I find confusing is that you are considered white if you are from North Africa so I assume if your considered black if you are from South Africa. Unless I had a family tree I would not know how to state his race and somehow deep inside I feel that the cesus is a violation of privacy rights. Then to top it off they used NEGRO as an option, I’m livid! Why is it in the U.S. that we can state a color is a race? No where else do people go on like this. Now that was the straw for me. It makes me think what is the true reason of collecting this information and are we really as liberal as the government proclaims us to be?