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Which is more stressful--your summer as a prison guard or running the Census Bureau...
...they alone. Arabs, who would seem to have an even stronger race claim than Hispanics do, are trumpeting their own write-in campaign because the Census by default counts them as white - and the bureau announced this week that it has no intention of changing that policy in 2010. Incredibly, the term Arab doesn't even appear on the census form, though other Asian ethnicities, like Indian, are listed as races. (Ironically, part of the problem is that Arab immigrants a century ago petitioned the Federal Government to be categorized as white to avoid discrimination. Today, Arab-American leaders realize...
...easy being the Census agency for America's baroque melting pot. And to be fair, Falcón notes, the Census hasn't slighted Hispanics in this year's count. On the contrary, as if acknowledging that Hispanics are now the nation's largest minority, the bureau has given the group its own "Hispanic Origins" section. It even precedes the general race section on the questionnaire and, advocates say, promises to yield a more comprehensive tally of Hispanics for purposes of federal aid and civil rights protections. But many Hispanics are nonetheless irked when they go to the next section...
While Kumar, like Falcón, applauds the Census Bureau for the 2010 form's prominent Hispanic-origins feature, she feels the feds still fail to understand "how layered the Latino self-identity is" beyond just language. North Americans call Oct. 12 Columbus Day, but Latin Americans call it Dia de la Raza - Day of the Race - a recognition that 1492 began a commingling of primarily Iberian, native American and African blood that in turn produced a new race, sometimes called mestizo. That process was perhaps deepest in Mexico - and because Mexico is the origin country of almost two-thirds...
...this should prod the Census Bureau to simplify things for future counts. The Hispanic-origins and race sections should be combined into one, less confusing section that asks folks what ethnic and/or racial group they belong to: white, black, Native American, Asian, Pacific Islander or Hispanic. It should (as it already does for some groups on the form) provide space for designating subgroups - like Arabs, for example. (Many Jamaican- and Bahamian-Americans also feel the Census should list their Caribbean origins as a black subgroup.) And it should make clear that respondents can check more than one group. That matters...