First I must note, that of the ten questions on the US Census are very general and involve contact information and age and sex classification. Now onto the issue of what questions are included, which ones are excluded, and why certain categories are worded in the manner which they are. One of the first things that caught my eye was that "ethnicity" is not a category and that the US federal government is solely concerned with race; the census website claims that this is because the US Census is not supposed to determine ancestry (that is done by another agency and random sampling) but to determine the composition of the current population. In some of the racial categories I noticed some interesting details... there are more specific options for certain racial categories, normally Hispanic/Latino or Asian, and the appearance of the word "negro", which the US Census claims is used because some of the population still identifies using that word.
The United States of America is trying to better monitor and understand its population, but this document seems to raise more questions than it answers. Which begs the question, is it really helping? I have a hard time feeling like I am represented by these ten limited questions. I know it is for the whole nation, but I can't help but feeling like all the US Census 2010 will do is to reinforce the acceptance of race as a legitimate biological category and its uses in social situations.
After you take a look at the well advertised Census 2010 and fill it out, please let me know what you all think about it.
Well, I just got my Census today and I can tell you one think I am glad of: race is not limited to black, white, Asian, and Native American like I thought. There are a lot more categories, including Vietnamese, which is what I consider myself to me. Although, I don't know if I would call these categories race since they seem more like ethnicity to me. I am also a little surprise that, if you are in the other category, there is a box where you can write down what race you identify yourself as exactly.
ReplyDeleteThe Census is not as bad as I thought. In my opinion, I think a Census is good because it gives small minority groups to have a chance to say "Hey, I am here. Don't glance over me." Census also serves sociological and research purposes as well so I am not against it as long as it doesn't keep you too limited on your choice of identification. Though I do notice that as a white person, you really don't have much to put down. I guess this is the "markedness" that we talked about earlier in the semester.
I just filled out my Census as well. Although the race section was not limited to black, white, Asian, and Native American like Thoa said, the categories that included "Vietnamese" for me personally seem more descriptive of ethnic origin rather than race.
ReplyDeleteIt seems a little contradictory that the Census claims that it is not their job to determine ancestry, when, in my opinion, putting a category that includes, for example, "Vietnamese" people does exactly that--establishes a place of origin for a group of people.
I was also unsure why one question was asking about race and the previous question asked about whether or not the person is of Hispanic, Spanish, or Latino origin. Apparently, this question has been asked since 1970 and the data collected aims to monitor whether or not there is compliance with the anti-discrimination provisions. I would think that the reason the Census would include race categories in general would be to monitor compliance regarding any race category.
Alhough this is the case, there is one more reason why this question is separate from the question addressing the person's race. The data collected from this question can be used by "State and local governments to plan and administer bilingual programs for people of Hispanic origin" (U.S. Census).
Although I did not have to fill out my own census form because my parents put my information on theirs, I think that the census is formatted and worded in an unusual way. I agree that there is some contradicting statements made by the administrators of the census. I realize that they are saying that they are only interested in the racial make up of the current population, but I think they should have done a more consistent job of identifying racial categories. Also, part of me feels as though it is inappropriate to use the word "negro" on the census. I don't feel that saying that this is because part of the population still uses it is a very good excuse. There are many derogatory terms used by individuals in American society, but I don't feel that this is any reason to use them on the census.
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