NYANKS said:
It seems you are right as they are changing the rules a bit for the 2010 census (they change little things every time don't they lol). From Wikipedia: "The 2010 US Census includes changes designed to more clearly distinguish Hispanic ethnicity as not being a race. That includes adding the sentence: "For this census, Hispanic origins are not races."[14][15] Additionally, the Hispanic terms are modified from "Hispanic or Latino" to "Hispanic, Latino or Spanish origin".[14][15] Although used in the Census and the American Community Survey, "Some other race" is not an official race,[13] and the Bureau considered eliminating it prior to the 2000 Census.[16] As the 2010 census form does not contain the question titled "Ancestry" found in recent censuses, there are campaigns to get non-Hispanic West Indian AmericansArab Americans to indicate their ethnic or national background through the race question, specifically the "Some other race" category.[17][18][19] and The American Anthropological Association (AAA) recommended that OMB combine the "race" and "ethnicity" categories into one question to appear as "race/ethnicity" for the 2010 US Census. The Interagency Committee agrees, stating that “"race" and "ethnicity” were not sufficiently defined and “that many respondents conceptualize "race" and "ethnicity" as one in the same underscor[ing] the need to consolidate these terms into one category, using a term that is more meaningful to the American people.”[4] The AAA also stated that “"race" has been scientifically proven to not be a real, natural phenomenon. More specific, social categories such as "ethnicity" or "ethnic group" are more salient for scientific purposes and have fewer of the negative, racist connotations for which the concept of race was developed.” It was for this reason that the AAA pushed for a reduction of the term “race” in government data collection. Since 1900, 26 different racial terms have been used to identify populations in the US Census.”[4] The Interagency Committee has suggested that the concept of marking multiple boxes be extended to the Hispanic origin question, thereby freeing individuals from having to choose between their parents' ethnic heritages. In other words, a respondent could chose both “Hispanic or Latino” and “Not Hispanic or Latino.”[20]
So, it seems like a hot button thing, but I see your point. |
Yeah, it's a war of well.... accuracy vs usefulness vs political correctness vs common sense.
A bunch of hispanic people get upset that hispanic isn't a race, and just get confused when they get to race. At the same time other hispanic people dislike the hispanic or latino race option because they see themselves as white, or black or "native american" or a combination of them all.
The pure statistions don't want latino/hispanic as a race, because technically, it isn't. Jewish isn't a race either and isn't a selection because of it. Jewish people are supposed to put "middle eastern."
People who want to use the stats for stuff want hispanic as a race because it DOES matter a lot culturally. A white person of europeon decent and a white person of hispanic descent are going to vary greatly.
Spanish americans HATE the term hispanic because hispanic is basically spanish and hate it as a race because they see themselves as white. They hate the term in general because most people want them NOT to put it even though hispanic fundamentaly means "from spain".
Latino, some groups of spanish people depending on country don't like, while others perfer and vice versa for hispanic. Because they aren't from spain or "latin" in different cases.
So yeah, it's an issue that generally probably won't be solved anytime soon.
