Hey guys!
So, I’m teaching English in France right now and I was supposed to do a lesson on race and diversity and representation in the United States. I thought, “That will be really easy; I’ll just look up the official statistics from the United States Census Bureau.”
But, um. The census forms only have options for six different races and then an option for Hispanic or non-Hispanic, which is like, what? There’s clearly more to race than that, I feel like.
So your six options for race are white, black or African-American, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, or two or more races. In addition to that, you have to check one of two boxes: either you are Hispanic or Latino or you are not Hispanic or Latino. Do you see any problems with this? Any, any at all? Any little problem, maybe?
Well, for one, Asian is a massive category that could encompass anyone from India to Japan, even though most Americans when they hear Asian think of East or Southeastern Asian. Also, where are the Middle-Eastern races? Can no one identify as Arab? If someone moved here from Iran or Pakistan or if their parents did, how would they identify on the census? And what if you identify as Hispanic or Latino, but you don’t identify as one of the other six options that you are given?
Now, look, I get that race is a complicated thing and it’s really hard to document. We come from all over the world and there’s no good way to draw hard lines in between each of us and put us into neat little boxes of specific races. But, race is a real and undeniable social construct and if we try to ignore it by being colorblind, we do a disservice to the people of color who are still being impacted by racism today.
So I got into researching the history of the Census, and it actually was pretty fascinating.
We used to have a ton more options for what was on the Census, but it kind of backfired. During World War II in the 1940s, the American government used Census data to track down Japanese individuals and put them into internment camps. Now, if you’re a person of color living in the 1940s and you see this happen to the Japanese, are you going to be so inclined to check the box for your race on the next Census? Probably not, no, I’m going to go with no. The answer’s no.
So we started going in the other direction, and we took all of the races off of the census because everyone just wanted to check the white box so that they could be safe.
But today, we face the opposite problem: We need accurate statistics on different races of people living in our country if we want to be able to do them justice. This year in California, the Latino population, at around 39%, actually surpassed the white population, making California the first state where white people are actually the minority.
Well, okay. Maybe not the first because Native Americans and the Mexicans, but you know what I mean. But, that’s awesome data and that’s data that we need to have because California needs to better learn how to serve a diverse population. We need more legal signs and paperwork in Spanish because English is not our official language, and we need to create better opportunities for people of color who are still highly underrepresented in high-paying jobs.
But, none of this is official Census data, so all I can do is hope that by 2020 we revise the Census so that we can get a more accurate snapshot of the United States as it is. I don’t know how we go about making that happen, but I’m hoping that complaining about it in a YouTube video is a start.
So what about you? How would you change the Census if you had total control over it? How many races would there be? What races would there be? Or would you count races at all? Let me know down in the comments. All right, I love you all so, so, so much and I hope you have a great day and I will see you next week. All right. Bye.
