US census questionnaire changes, first in 27 years

2024-03-28 19:22:38, Kosova & Bota CNA

For the first time in 27 years, the United States government is changing the way it categorizes people by race and ethnicity, an effort that federal officials believe will provide a more accurate picture of residents who identify as Hispanic and those who of Middle Eastern and North African descent.

The revisions to minimum classifications on race and ethnicity, announced Thursday by the Office of Management and Budget, are the latest effort to more accurately identify the population of the United States. This process often reflects changes in society and immigration, as well as a desire for people in an increasingly diverse society to be represented in statistics published by the federal government.

"The emotional impact this has on people cannot be underestimated," Meeta Anand, senior director at Census and Data Equity, told the Human Rights Conference. "This is how we conceive of ourselves as a society. ... We see a desire for people to self-identify and be reflected in the data released by the government so that they are able to tell their stories in the future.”

The changes include creating a single question about race and ethnicity. This will give respondents the opportunity to choose from a long list of categories such as “African American,” “Indian American,” and “Hispanic.” Research has shown that a large number of Hispanics are not sure how to answer the race question when asked separately, because they understand that race and ethnicity are similar, and they often choose “any other race” or do not answer the question.A

category of East Middle and North Africa will add to the question of race and ethnicity. People from places like Lebanon, Iran, Egypt and Syria have in the past been encouraged to identify as white, but will now have the option to identify as people of Middle Eastern descent. Results from the 2020 census, which asked respondents to explain their ancestry, suggest that 3.5 million residents identify as people of Middle Eastern and North African descent.

US census questionnaire changes, first in 27 years

"I'm glad that now we're going to be represented," said Florida state legislator Anna Eskamani, an Orlando Democrat whose parents are from Iran. "My family used to choose the 'white' option because there was no other option."

Part of the changes were the removal of the words "Negro" and "Far Eastern," now widely considered derogatory, as well as the words "majority" and "minority" because they do not reflect the country's complex racial and ethnic diversity, some officials say. .

The changes, which were made by a group of experts who worked over a two-year period, have long-term ramifications for legislative boundaries, civil rights laws, health statistics and possibly politics as the number of people categorized as white will decrease.

Donald Trump, who is expected to be the Republican nominee for president, recently alluded to arguments made by people who claim that Democrats are promoting illegal immigration to weaken the power of the white population. During his term as president, Mr. Trump tried unsuccessfully to disqualify people who were in the United States illegally from being included in the 2020 census.

The changes will be reflected in census data collection, forms, surveys and questionnaires. , which are done once a decade by the federal government, as well as state governments and the private sector, because businesses, universities and other groups usually follow the lead of Washington institutions. Federal agencies have 18 months to submit a plan to implement these changes.

The first federal standards on race and ethnicity were published in 1977 to provide consistent data across agencies and produce statistics that could help enforce civil rights laws. They were last updated in 1997 when five basic categories were defined - American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, African American, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, and white. Respondents had the option to make more than one choice. Minimal ethnic categories were grouped separately as non-Hispanic or Hispanic or Latino.

The interagency group that worked on the recent revisions noted that the categories are sociopolitical constructs, and race and ethnicity are not biologically or genetically determined.

US census questionnaire changes, first in 27 years

The racial and ethnic categories used by the US government reflect their times. In 1820, the category "Free people of color" was added to that decade's census to reflect the increase in the number of free people of color. American Indians were not explicitly enumerated until 1860. After years of immigration from China, "Chinese" was included in the 1870 census. There was no formal question about Hispanic origin until the 1980 census.

Not all support recent changes to the census questionnaire.

Some Afro-Latinos feel that the combination of the race and ethnicity question will reduce their numbers and representation in official data, although previous research from the US Census Bureau found no major differences between "Afro-Latino" responses. in questions with separate categories for this and those with combined questions on race and ethnicity.

Mozelle Ortiz, for example, is of mixed Afro-Puerto Rican descent. She thinks the changes could eliminate that identity, even though people may choose more than one answer after the race and ethnicity questions are combined.

"My entire lineage, that of my Afro-Puerto Rican grandmother and all other non-white people who speak Spanish, will be erased," she says.

William Chalmers, in a letter to the group, expressed concern that combining questions of race and ethnicity would confuse the two definitions.

"Like gender and sexual orientation, which are treated as separate categories, 'race' and 'culture' should be separate categories," says Mr. Chalmers./ VOA