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For the first time in 27 years, the U.S. government is changing how it categorizes people by race and ethnicity, an effort that federal officials believe will more accurately count residents who identify as Hispanic and of Middle Eastern and North African heritage.
The revisions to the minimum categories on race and ethnicity, announced Thursday by the Office of Management and Budget, are the latest effort to label and define the people of the United States. This evolving process often reflects changes in social attitudes and immigration, as well as a wish for people in an increasingly diverse society to see themselves in the numbers produced by the federal government.
I know this isn’t that important in the grand scheme of things, but I will always be confused on what to put for myself. My family comes from Central America (I have dual citizenship), so I should pick Hispanic, right? But my family is also white Hispanic, my cousin’s have a range of blonde and red hair, light eyes. I also have some Asian Hispanics in my family.
Hispanic really isn’t a race and it feels like I’m not supposed to pick it on the census because I don’t have the right skin color.
Whereas someone who does look Hispanic the way people think of, but maybe their family hasn’t lived there for generations, they get to be considered more Hispanic than me. It’s just confusing.
There also isn’t an option for brown Hispanic, I always pick other
Hispanic is an ethnicity, which is based on culture, while white/black/native american are based on genetics (theoretically).
Many (most?) Hispanic people in Central America are considered white because so much of their ancestry is Spanish or Portuguese. It sounds like you may have a higher proportion than most, is all.
But if there is a large portion of Asian Hispanic people in your ancestry, you may be mixed race Hispanic.
Yeah definitely that’s how I understood it, but now it sounds like they are categorizing Hispanic as a race not an ethnicity.
Just choose what you identify as. Sounds like white or Hispanic. Just pick one. It’s not that important. It’s not a personality quiz.
Only put down what the number of people in your household for the census. If it is anything else just select decline if decline isn’t an option select other and write human.
My very much fuck the power grandmother told me this and I have been doing this ever since