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So i'm filling out the census, and it says:

Note: Please answer BOTH Question 8 about Hispanic origin and Question 9 about race. For this census, Hispanic origins are not races.

What the hell? What am I supposed to answer for Question 9?
Should I just put "Other" and fill in "Hispanic" ?

Knockglock wrote:So i'm filling out the census, and it says:

Note: Please answer BOTH Question 8 about Hispanic origin and Question 9 about race. For this census, Hispanic origins are not races.

What the hell? What am I supposed to answer for Question 9?
Should I just put "Other" and fill in "Hispanic" ?

Hispanic isn't a race. I guess I've got a bit of black, white, whatever, but I just choose white when in doubt. Race is silly.

Just put "mixed race" for everything.

Hispanic isn't a race, it is a cultural thing. Races are things such as white, black, pacific islander, asian, etc. Hispanic people can be one of many races. For example, there are people in Cuba of both White and Black racial backgrounds. However they are all Hispanic, from a cultural perspective.

dakatz wrote:Hispanic isn't a race, it is a cultural thing. Races are things such as white, black, pacific islander, asian, etc. Hispanic people can be one of many races. For example, there are people in Cuba of both white and black racial backgrounds. However they are all Hispanic, from a cultural perspective.

Most Hispanics are mixed. So, I reiterate that you just check the answer closest to mixed.

Hispanic has never been a race so I don't see what the problem is...

And for race, put what your race is. Are you white? Black? Mixed? There's your answer.

dakatz wrote:Hispanic isn't a race, it is a cultural thing. Races are things such as white, black, pacific islander, asian, etc. Hispanic people can be one of many races. For example, there are people in Cuba of both white and black racial backgrounds. However they are all Hispanic, from a cultural perspective.

+1

.

Knockglock wrote:So i'm filling out the census, and it says:

Note: Please answer BOTH Question 8 about Hispanic origin and Question 9 about race. For this census, Hispanic origins are not races.

What the hell? What am I supposed to answer for Question 9?
Should I just put "Other" and fill in "Hispanic" ?

?? Hispanic has never been a race. Their background tends to be a mixture of white, indian, and black. Not sure what you're confused about. Put your race down, white, black, asian, or whatever it is and then hispanic down as your ethnic background.

newyorker88 wrote:?? Hispanic has never been a race. Their background tends to be a mixture of white, indian, and black. Not sure what you're confused about. Put your race down, white, black, asian, or whatever it is and then hispanic down as your ethnic background.

To be fair, some groups of Hispanics do refer to themselves as a race. "La raza" is the Hispanic race that was created by the blending of European (Spanish) and Native American (Aztec etc.) blood. Because of how common this particular combination was, they see it as so widespread and have so much pride in it that they see it as part of a new race instead of trying to define themselves as "interracial".

However, because very few people in the U.S. overall fit into that, and there are so many "Hispanics" here that are not members of "la raza", I think the Census approach is appropriate for this country.

That is the OMB definition that was changed in 1997. Here is more info:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/fedreg_1997standards/

Middle Eastern isn't listed either

The whole notion of race is pre/pseudo-scientific -- there's really no biological basis for classifying humans into subspecies, especially when you look at genetic evidence. If we must classify, it makes much more sense to speak of ethnicity.

vanwinkle wrote:

newyorker88 wrote:?? Hispanic has never been a race. Their background tends to be a mixture of white, indian, and black. Not sure what you're confused about. Put your race down, white, black, asian, or whatever it is and then hispanic down as your ethnic background.

To be fair, some groups of Hispanics do refer to themselves as a race. "La raza" is the Hispanic race that was created by the blending of European (Spanish) and Native American (Aztec etc.) blood. Because of how common this particular combination was, they see it as so widespread and have so much pride in it that they see it as part of a new race instead of trying to define themselves as "interracial".

Don't just mexicans refer to themselves as La Raza? and I've never heard of any group seeing the entire pool of hispanics as one big race. seems a bit odd he would get the perception that hispanic is a race.

In our family, we all consider ourselves Hispanic.
Here is our household breakdown:
Hubby: more black than mexi, but has white too
Me: more mexi than black, but some native american too
child 1: my bio daughter from prior marriage, she has my background, but her dad is black
child 2 & 3: a mixture of me and hubby.

You can see we are all mixed up with different proportions, and we all look very different.
On our census, I checked multi-race for everybody and I checked white/black/other for everyone. I didn't want to do native american, because it then asks you to fill in tribe info, and I have no idea what that would be for me.

autarkh wrote:The whole notion of race is pre/pseudo-scientific -- there's really no biological basis for classifying humans into subspecies, especially when you look at genetic evidence. If we must classify, it makes much more sense to speak of ethnicity.

Agreed. 'Race' is really just a collection of easily observable and highly inheritable physical traits.

autarkh wrote:The whole notion of race is pre/pseudo-scientific -- there's really no biological basis for classifying humans into subspecies, especially when you look at genetic evidence. If we must classify, it makes much more sense to speak of ethnicity.

Yea, you beat me to it.

Ben Reilly wrote:

autarkh wrote:The whole notion of race is pre/pseudo-scientific -- there's really no biological basis for classifying humans into subspecies, especially when you look at genetic evidence. If we must classify, it makes much more sense to speak of ethnicity.

Yea, you beat me to it.

+1

The notion of "race" is more social than physical in that regard. Considering that, then it serves no purpose for them to collect statistics other than ethnicity.

For example, I am ethinically hispanic, but I don't identify with white or black or indian "race". "Socially" I would identify myself as "latina" but that wasn't an option either.

raperez129 wrote:In our family, we all consider ourselves Hispanic.
Here is our household breakdown:
Hubby: more black than mexi, but has white too
Me: more mexi than black, but some native american too
child 1: my bio daughter from prior marriage, she has my background, but her dad is black
child 2 & 3: a mixture of me and hubby.

You can see we are all mixed up with different proportions, and we all look very different.
On our census, I checked multi-race for everybody and I checked white/black/other for everyone. I didn't want to do native american, because it then asks you to fill in tribe info, and I have no idea what that would be for me.

Sorry, this has no bearing on the topic at hand, but i bet your kids are gorgeous.

raperez129 wrote:

Ben Reilly wrote:

autarkh wrote:The whole notion of race is pre/pseudo-scientific -- there's really no biological basis for classifying humans into subspecies, especially when you look at genetic evidence. If we must classify, it makes much more sense to speak of ethnicity.

Yea, you beat me to it.

+1

The notion of "race" is more social than physical in that regard. Considering that, then it serves no purpose for them to collect statistics other than ethnicity.

For example, I am ethinically hispanic, but I don't identify with white or black or indian "race". "Socially" I would identify myself as "latina" but that wasn't an option either.

Same, I don't identify with any of the "races" on the census, so I just ended up checking white, because I'm not dark so it was the default option almost for light-skinned hispanics...

klussy wrote:Middle Eastern isn't listed either

it's classified as white.

i just finished my census training, and for the definition for "white" it lists quite explicitly all middle eastern/arabic 'races' as white.



also, most hispanics are considered white, however I feel I won't be getting that response too often

Panther7 wrote:

klussy wrote:Middle Eastern isn't listed either

it's classified as white.

i just finished my census training, and for the definition for "white" it lists quite explicitly all middle eastern/arabic 'races' as white.



also, most hispanics are considered white, however I feel I won't be getting that response too often

Can you explain what else you learned?

So hispanics are considered white? so confusing

Knockglock wrote:

Panther7 wrote:

klussy wrote:Middle Eastern isn't listed either

it's classified as white.

i just finished my census training, and for the definition for "white" it lists quite explicitly all middle eastern/arabic 'races' as white.



also, most hispanics are considered white, however I feel I won't be getting that response too often

Can you explain what else you learned?

So hispanics are considered white? so confusing

hispanic origin is a yes/no question. it is immediately followed by the question of race, so even if you select say... mexican american, you will still be asked the race question which contains several eastern asian ethinicities, natives, white, black, and islander? might be one more, it's more or less the same form that got mailed out.



So even if you pick mexican american, you'll still have to answer either black or white. it's making the unspoken assumption that anyone who claims hispanic origin is by definition mixed race.

Panther7 wrote:

So even if you pick mexican american, you'll still have to answer either black or white. it's making the unspoken assumption that anyone who claims hispanic origin is by definition mixed race.

I know...that is what I got from it too. That is why I wanted to f*ck with them by checking as many boxes as possible for "race"....

1. This still doesn't help me figure out what race I should put down, but it helps. I'm going to assume I should just put both black and white, since I do know there are blacks in my family and apparently people from Mexico are white.

2. If anyone wants to really figure out what everyone's "race" is, science has determined that we all descended from native Africans and our closest relatives to those natives are the San people, or Bushmen as they're commonly known.

So really, everyone should include black when they're marking "race" boxes. When in doubt, mark black. Not white.