By Edwin Flores and Suzanne Gamboa -
NBC News
Erika Prosper, of Mexican descent, recalls not knowing how to fill out the census forms for her family.
“I never felt that she belonged to what was supposed to be the white population
,” says this 48-year-old woman.
“As a young man, I had the responsibility of completing paperwork for my family and I remember consciously selecting 'other' because we had been treated like others,” she explains.
When the last census survey came in in 2020, she checked multiracial to reflect a mix of what she says are her Latino and indigenous roots.
“I don't think I'm the only one,” she says.
Ron Nirenberg, mayor of San Antonio and husband of Prosper, is of Eastern European Ashkenazi Jewish descent and has Filipino, Malay, Indian and British roots.
Both may have more options to choose from in the 2030 census.
The US studies including Hispanic/Latino as a race (and not just as an ethnicity) on official forms
Jan 27, 202300:24
The Joe Biden government is working to update the official method of identifying race and ethnicity in the United States.
To that end, he is soliciting public feedback on his Jan. 27 proposal to change the option for those who identify as Hispanic or Latino or a version of it.
Interested parties can submit their proposals on the federal website until April 12.
The federal government has been struggling for decades to reflect the complexity of the increasingly diverse population of people with Latino or Hispanic roots.
The ramifications of the proposed changes are vast, ranging from how the census asks for the identity of people to how a local police officer would identify someone cited for a traffic violation.
The disproportionate impact of the pandemic on communities of color and the lack of data from some states and localities to show their rates of infections, hospitalizations, vaccinations and deaths demonstrated the need to refine the collection of such information.
“States adopt what the federal government does.
Their schools, their security forces, all of them are following the indications of what the government is doing,” says Julie Dowling, author of
Mexican Americans and the Question of Race
.
[Biden proposes to define Hispanic/Latino as a race in federal documents]
The Biden Administration's Office of Management and Budget proposes asking people "What is your race or ethnicity?"
followed by the option “Select all that apply”.
In an abbreviated question, there would be check boxes next to “white”, “Hispanic or Latino”, “black or African American”, “Asian”, “Native American or Alaska Native”, “Middle Eastern or Northern Africa” and “Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander.”
An alternative proposal is a longer question, providing details under each option.
For example, after “Hispanic” or “Latino”, the respondent could select a box for “Mexican” or “Mexican American”, another for “Puerto Rican”, and so on.
An option to write is also included.
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Under current government rules, the 2020 census asked citizens to first select whether or not they were Hispanic and, if so, what origin: Mexican, Puerto Rican, etc.
They were then asked to choose their race, but Hispanic or Latino was not among the available options.
Some 26 million Hispanics, that is, 42%, marked "some other race."
“The problem we have now is that people get confused and end up not completing the question about race.
People think, I already indicated that I am Mexican, so why do I have to check 'other' or 'other race'?” reflects Arturo Vargas, executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials or NALEO (for its acronym in English).
“People also get confused because they consider their Latinness to be their identity,” Vargas stresses.
That confusion is reflected in the evolution of census forms, which did not have a Hispanic identity question until 1980. "Mexicano" was added in 1930, but was removed before the next census amid protests by Mexican-American activists and Mexico, says Julie Dowling, the author of
Mexican Americans and the Question of Race
.
In recent years, “people saw data as a source of power.
Having them was a way that you could argue and defend your community,” she asserts.
[From undocumented to Wall Street: this is Julissa Arce]
Jathan Melendez, 24, is one of the lead youth organizers for the Community Coalition, a South Los Angeles group that fights against systemic racism and for better relations between blacks and Latinos.
Growing up as a biracial black man with Honduran, Guatemalan and Belizean roots, he says he feels "typecast" with today's limited racial options.
“It was always difficult to choose: there were times when I identified as black and others when I identified as Central American,” he says.
"I had to put 'other' and specify that he was Central American to feel comfortable at that moment."
When asked how he would respond with the currently proposed options, Meléndez states that “I would continue to choose black because I would fear that my identity as a Central American on paper would limit the opportunities or resources or voice of the black community because I chose not to identify as black.”
The identifiers are critical to enforcing civil rights, Vargas says, noting that the first use of the new census data is for redistricting.
“We need to know where Latinos live, where African Americans live, essentially so we can draw districts that comply with the Voting Rights Act.”
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“If we have that 40% of Latinos say they are of some other race, that does not help to find out who these Latinos are racially, since they are identifying themselves in a non-existent category,” he stresses.
Mark Hugo López, director of research on race and ethnicity at the Pew Research Center, maintains that for some, Hispanic or Latino is a race, while for others it is an identity derived from the countries they come from, their ethnicity, and their family origins and is not tied to race.
“Race and ethnicity are viewed and considered differently than they are here in the United States,” López argues.
“One of the concerns with this particular change is not only identifying the racial and ethnic distribution among Latinos, but also whether or not we might lose something in the counts of Hispanics,” she explains.
[Why Latino parents care more about their children: “We are affectionate, we are warm... that can be excessive”]
There has been disagreement among Latinos about whether the one-question format was the best way to go.
Vargas says NALEO had to be persuaded, and was persuaded, by research showing that the combined question yielded more comprehensive data on Latinos.
But Nancy López, a professor of sociology at the University of New Mexico, says that the proposal is problematic and suggests a box for the "moreno" category.
“If we collect the Hispanic data only as race data, then we delete the black Latinos because what we are saying is, well, there is a Latino race, and you are mestizo or something like that.
It's ridiculous,” in the opinion of López, the daughter of Dominican immigrants.
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Feb 4, 202301:51
The proposed single question will obscure the different levels of segregation among Latinos and will dilute the data on Latino diversity, he regrets.
López gives the example of actress Anna Taylor-Joy, who is Scottish-Argentine, typecast in an article as a woman of color when she identifies as a white Latina.
“When you have five boxes checked, who knows what they are going to do?”
With that information, López wonders.
Benjamin Casar, 30, grew up in Houston, Texas, and speaks Spanish.
His family immigrated from Mexico in the 1980s and has ancestry from parts of North Africa, Spain and Hawaii.
Like Meléndez, Casar had a hard time choosing the race in the red tape.
He remembers asking his mother "What are we?"
and “Which do I choose?”
when he was younger.
If the proposal to include Hispanic or Latino in the race and ethnicity section goes ahead, he assures that he will try to ensure that all the cultures of his family are represented and will mark all that apply.