Modernizing the U.S. Census (1995) / Chapter Skim
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7 DATA ON RACE AND ETHNICITY
7 DATA ON RACE AND ETHNICITY
Pages 140-155
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From page 140... ...
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, with extensions, amendments, and court interpretations, have expanded the need for race and ethnicity data for all levels of geography, including individual blocks. These data are required for congressional and state election redistricting, for enforcement of federal, state, and local civil rights statutes, for allocation of funds and administration of programs at every level of government, and for many related purposes (see Appendix C)
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From page 141... ...
The legal approach views individuals as potential members of protected classes, as defined by statutes and judicial decisions. The statistical approach reflects an effort to provide a comprehensive demographic profile with data that may extend beyond legal considerations.
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From page 142... ...
Additional Asian categories were included to record the increased immigration from Asian countries that resulted from implementation of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act (which abolished the national origins system of the National Origins Act of 1924, as well as the Asiatic barred zone of the Immigration Act of 1917~. Also during the twentieth century, several categories
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From page 143... ...
The race, Hispanic origin, and related ethnicity items on the census since 1970 are shown in Table 7.2 for the short form and Table 7.3 for the long form. These items are the result of changing policy and programmatic needs for race and ethnicity data and special research programs of the Census Bureau to test and improve the enumeration of racial minorities and persons of Hispanic origin in a mail-based census.
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From page 148... ...
The categories reported are those promulgated in the federal standard for race and ethnicity data, OMB Statistical Directive 15 (1977) , which included four race groups: black, white, American Indian or Alaskan Native, and Asian or Pacific Islander; and one ethnic group, Hispanic origin.
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From page 149... ...
Revisions to Directive 15 in the next few years would affect the 2000 census, possibly requiring additional major race and ethnicity categories, changing the specific groups within the major categories, and requiring the use of multiple responses. In recent years, social scientists, some advocacy groups, and other data users have questioned the conceptual foundations behind the basic categories reported in OMB Statistical Directive 15 and hence the P.L.
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From page 150... ...
suggests that many people have a range of choices and options in how they choose to identify. The increased number of people identified as American Indian and their high intermarriage rates, as well as the substantial intermarriage rates for several Asian and Pacific Islander and Hispanic populations, suggest that racial and ethnic identity is becoming more complex and may shift for a person over time as well as in social context.
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From page 151... ...
It is clear that the actual wording of race and ethnicity questions can affect responses. For example, having an explicit box to check for Mexican origin self-identification results in more persons who classify themselves as Mexican than does an open-ended question to which persons can write in the classification "Mexican."3 In the census, the race, Hispanic origin, and ancestry items may be viewed as variations of the same or similar concept, the overlap of concepts, or as different but related concepts depending on sequence, wording, and instructions.
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From page 152... ...
The 1975 amendment to the Voting Rights Act defines "persons who are American Indian, Asian American, Alaskan Native or of Spanish heritage" as "language minorities." Directive 15 defines American Indians and Asian and Pacific Islanders as "racial" groups, regardless of language facility in English. The census questionnaire is in accord with Directive 15 and considers American Indians and Asian and Pacific Islanders, along with blacks and whites, as racial groups; it further includes tribal and subgroup delineations of these smaller populations.
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From page 153... ...
A more extensive program of research on how persons identify themselves in terms of race and ethnicity is needed to promote meaningful classifications in a changing society. Such a program would include the extension of current, but limited, Census Bureau initiatives on cognitive research; testing of various combinations of the race, Hispanic-origin, and ancestry items; and testing for open-ended and multiple identifications.
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From page 154... ...
Any proposed changes of race and ethnicity items will have implications for race and ethnicity data needed for statutory, legislative, and programmatic purposes that should be taken into consideration. These include drawing political boundaries, funding allocations for various geographical levels, as well as the quality of the data for small geographical areas and for such relatively small racial and ethnic groups as American Indians.
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From page 155... ...
~ cc relahonship between check-box and deeming did not hold far the ~rke-ins lo me Asian and Pacific Islander category in the race teem: pre-1990 teshng showed 1ba1 more people provided Asian Ed Pacific Islander wale-ins 1h~ reposed in the check-boxes for the Asian and Pacific Islander groups.
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