I feel like I'm allowed to re-write and edit the OP with abandon until the first comment, fwiw.
You can check 'Other" and write in "Jedi".
I think the idea is that both race and ethnicity are social facts -- being mid-brown-and-not-Asian doesn't actually speak to a common, non-internally diverse experience any better than "Latino" does, it just draws the boundaries at somewhat different places.
Supposedly, this is the first census showing fewer white people than the one before. If you ask me, I think it's a quality control issue. The attempt to define authentic whiteness as "belligerent shithead" leads people to check other boxes of it is at all plausible.
4: But the problem is that Latino people still have to check something under "race", and end up checking "other" which feels bizarre for such a big group. At least anecdotally I hear that it annoys a lot of Latinos.
An alternate wording could be, "Which of the following labels do you identify with? Check all that apply" and just include ethnicities and races together.
That's going to be really confusing for your data analyst.
People can already check multiple boxes. I don't see how it's any different on the data side?
Because someone could have a race with no ethnicity or an ethnicity with no race.
Why wouldn't you interpret the first as "[race], not hispanic/latino" and the second as "other, hispanic/latino"? Right now there are only two choices for ethnicity anyway: you're either hispanic/latino or you're not.
Or you'd have to have some choices that are either a race or an ethnicity, contingent on which other options were selected.
I'm saying you could easily parse a lumped-together question back into the previous framework, while not aggravating a lot of brown Latino people on the race question.
13: Yes, that's what's going to happen 95% of the time regardless.
I altered 13 after you wrote 15, to reiterate the benefit to doing it this way.
I'm just saying that it's very weird that the current system puts a lot of thought into accommodating white Hispanics and black Hispanics, and bizarrely alienates the vast majority of brown Hispanics.
Oh, I understand now. Not a replacement for Latino but an addition, meaning "bi/multi-racial with at least some indigenous American admixture, happening enough generations ago that I can't name specific ancestors who would have fit into a single 'racial' group" (that's not a perfect definition, I'm just trying to get more precise than mid-brown and not Asian.) And in practice that would be almost a subset of "Latino" -- very few people would be in that group who aren't 'ethnically' Latino, although plenty of Latinos are outside it.
That might be useful -- I wonder if anyone's ever proposed it seriously, or if there are downsides I'm not seeing.
Agree with 7. The current version seems to reify race in a weird way.
The UK one doesn't ask about race. It does ask about nationality, and about ethnicity. So you could identify yourself as "Scottish and Welsh, with mixed Caribbean and Asian ethnicity", or whatever. It does allow you to write in categories, for nationality, and ethnicity, if you feel that none of the categories fit you, and you can select more than one nationality. But, it does require that you only choose _one_ethnicity.
To be fair, reification of race in weird ways in a national tradition.
I have no idea what the cultural baggage is around the word mestizo -- I recognize it, but it's not in my use vocabulary. But if it means the right thing and no one hates it, sure.
Yeah, I don't either. I googled long enough to determine that it doesn't seem pejorative throughout Latin America, and seems to capture what we're going for, but for sure this is a situation where the group would choose its own label.
Maybe "Bright" would work? The atheists seem to have dropped it.
A quick look at communities around Pittsburgh shows massive % growth in "two or more races." I wonder if this was worded differently or somehow came up differently in the sequence of questions.
Still not a very large number, but for instance it went from 83 to 515 (1% to 5.5%). I am sure it grew, but I am wondering if was either the question or more people identifying themselves that way. Quick glance at other communities show it consistently the highest % growth (including Pittsburgh where it grew ~170%). Have to run, but want to look further.
My first guess is it is a combo of both significant growth in that category through births and immigration, but also more people identifying that way (or at least answering the Census question so),
I thought Obama was going to replace the existing categories with the full panoply of coffee drinks.
My kid was a census taker, speaks Spanish. His take: the existing census categories don't make sense for Hispanics basically, and are quite confusing to them.
Troubled as the terms are, "mestizo" (which LB mentioned above) or "indio" do not map to any census category. The DR apparently counts "mulatto" as an identity category. At the very least, clear instructyions for census takers to ask about these and then on how to map these widely used terms to existing census categories would be a big step.
Are Uighurs or Kazakhs white?
All that said, gratifying to see that so many cities have grown in population. IMO, that's going to sharpen the conflicts in the US. Sad ti=o see how many people have left Baltimore.
Yonah Freemark has been writing a lot about the census and cities.
Yonah Freemark has been writing a lot about the census and cities.
But the problem is that Latino people still have to check something under "race", and end up checking "other" which feels bizarre for such a big group. At least anecdotally I hear that it annoys a lot of Latinos.
It seems like they are checking "other" a lot more than they used to! If this reporter has it right, it's basically driving the "decline in white people" narrative. 14 million drop from 2010 in "white Hispanic/Latino", 17 million increase in "Hispanic/Latino + more than one race."
Oddly, the extremely detailed summary file they release for redistricting, the one I've been looking at so far (I'm sure there are others), doesn't let you draw this out. Table P1 divides people by single and multiple races, drilling down to 71 categories, all the way to combinations of 6 races. Table P2 has "Hispanic/Latino", then "not Hispanic/Latino," then divides the latter into the same 71 categories, but not the former.
The census people should make the coding of occupations map onto D&D character class.
As always with these things, it's complicated. Colonial Spanish America in theory had a very elaborate system of racial classification with subtle gradations of mixture between different ancestries, which in practice ended up being hopelessly confused with people moving back and forth between categories in different contexts. Independence added an additional layer of confusion due to diverging trajectories of nationalism in the different republics that led to wildly varying attitudes toward racial classification. Some countries, like Mexico and Peru, developed nationalist ideologies that celebrated mestizaje and encouraged the flattening out of racial distinctions into a single nationality, whereas others, like Guatemala and Bolivia, continue to maintain a rigid separation between racial categories which are seen as competing for influence in national civic life. (The recent coup in Bolivia is a particularly clear example of the "white" faction trying to wrestle control from the "Indian" faction.) I don't know how this plays out exactly among immigrant communities in the US, but the Census Bureau's awkward race/ethnicity system is in part an attempt to address it systematically on a nationwide scale.
The Census lets people write in their ancestry, codes it to a list of hundreds, and periodically adds ones a lot of people are using (like "Texan").
They also let people write in a box for "other race", but don't seem to code it or release much data on what people write in.
NMM to one of Big Pecan Statue's most admirable products. Nanci Griffith has died at age 68. Never really broke through to the big time but a stalwart of the Texas music scene.
I do think "other race" was also way up in SW PA communities.
Oh, here we go: in 2010 they only recorded the first 30 characters of what people wrote in for "Some other race", and if people wrote in more than one thing there were only two write-in spaces, but this time it's up to 200 characters and up to 6 groups, so there will probably be some more useful data.
So did 2010 have a lot of things like "Asian-Pacific Islander of Fili"
So, I went to the gym today and I saw a guy driving a car with a large American Flag on the roof, a large pride flag next to it, and a bumper sticker reading "Don't like my driving, call 1-800-YOUR-MOM."
"I know that Hispanic people in Texas look more racially homogeneous, but across the US, it's a racially diverse group (and in fact a very heterogeneous group in all senses). Therefore it doesn't make sense to have a Hispanic "race".
Unlike those straightforward, homogeneous groups like, say, Asians. Or African Americans. Or even plain ol' white folks. I don't know what sort of data collection would be better, but I also don't know what the aggregate racial/ethnic data is supposed to be good for (aside from driving segments of the white population insane).
aside from driving segments of the white population insane
Way too late on that.
Well, race is a protected class, so it's useful to know who lives where so that you know if a given districting is being gerrymandered with respect to race.
46: If I understand correctly, the Republicans have reformed and no longer engage in gerrymandering to prevent the election of non-white people. They've moved on to making sure that areas with lots of non-white people can elect their representatives by the largest possible majorities, leaving Republicans to win adjacent districts with 55-60% of the vote.
Apart from that specific example, I agree that it's useful to have demographic data. I just think the aggregates get less meaningful as the geographic area gets larger, and that by the time you get to saying "the US is now x% Asian," there's very little useful information left.
The Republican candidate for mayor of Pittsburgh's defense against charges that he's a white supremacist is that he can't be a racist because he's got Hispanic and Native American ancestors. Which is probably true but it would be more convincing if he stopped hanging around with white supremacists.
OK, I confirmed the Hispanic racial breakdown shifts, for California at least.
From 2010 Census to 2020 Census, among those with Hispanic/Latino ethnicity:
* White alone: 8.4m in 2010, 2.6m in 2020
* "Some other race": 4.8m in 2010, 8.1m in 2020
* Two or more races: 0.6m in 2010, 4.1m in 2020
* Black, Asian, etc.: 0.3m in 2010, 0.7m in 2020
White alone
White sociable was not an option.
The 1921 Canadian census has lots of choices for race: https://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2017/statcan/CS98-1921-1-1924.pdf
Skip to to page 451 of the pdf.
Lot of census talk on my feed is about how uneven the population growth is. Several counties lost population, several gained, and Gallatin went crazy, passing Missoula for the first time ever. The different is more than accounted for by the enrollment drop at UM. The house district where UM is actually lost population -- most districts in town gained, but not as much as the statewide rate, but exurban districts grew by a lot. Will we be turning some new Gallatin districts blue? Time will tell, and the new legislative maps won't be live until the 2024 election.
By complete coincidence was taking to my Mexican-American sister in law last night and she was complaining about exactly this issue. The context was that she got DNA results which were like 40%+ indigenous meso-american, but she felt like you can't say White and American Indian, because the latter is for people with American tribal affiliations. Which is its own strange question, if you're a Mayan immigrant are you supposed to list American Indian or not? But white only also seems ridiculous.
IME, it's not uncommon for tribes that use BQ for membership to go down to 25%. And I would guess that the expectation is that is you're a CSKT citizen, you're going to check the Indian box no matter what your other DNA is.
I can see why people are confused, but I bet the people who work at the Census Bureau would say that a person of Quechua heritage should say Indian, rather than one of the other categories.
The great thing about the Quechua people is how the women have taken to bowler hats and can wear them without looking like a hipster incel.
53 What would really be fascinating, istm, about your sil's dna results would be how it maps the Mexican diaspora in the US. Does she have 2d and 3d cousins in Washington, Oregon, the Carolinas, Texas, Florida? Obviously, the biggest sort is who takes tests.
My fourth cousins and I share common ancestors born from the 1790s to the 1810s. Even if your SIL is a generation younger than me, that's still going back to the very early independence period, so her fourth cousins would've been spread around by all sorts of different currents.
There's also the little oddity of whether Portuguese-background people count as Hispanic. The Census definition excludes them, and apparently almost no Portuguese immigrants self-identify that way, but apparently they are counted by SBA and DOT for affirmative action contracting purposes. At least based on some random article here (not so random; it's from a local paper with a substantial Portuguese-American population).
Yeah, she was telling some of that, though mostly it's Texas, Chicago, and Missouri. In her case the indigenous ancestors is primarily through her dad's side (her mom's dna was only 20% and her dad identifies as Indian but hasn't had a DNA test) and more recent immigration while her mom's side is not recent immigration (Texano) and more spread around the country. One of her motivations for getting tested was curiousity about whether her dad's family was more indigenous ancestry.
It almost feels like there should be separate questions about whether you're indigenous identified and whether your ancestry is New World.
Tracing my granddaughter's Mexican ancestry -- and I've really only scratched the surface -- has been really interesting. One ancestor was the sister of a member of the Juarez cabinet -- a couple of generations later, the family lost everything in a revolution.
Tracing my granddaughter's Mexican ancestry -- and I've really only scratched the surface -- has been really interesting. One ancestor was the sister of a member of the Juarez cabinet -- a couple of generations later, the family lost everything in a revolution.
I also don't know what the aggregate racial/ethnic data is supposed to be good for (aside from driving segments of the white population insane).
Humorless response: I think to allow external measurement of the behavior of states in the former confederacy towards their formerly enslaved inhabitants and their descendants.
Soon your options are B, I, NBIPOC, or white.
The census has been asking about race since 1850.
The 3/5ths compromise required it from the start.
Interesting surmise out there that the slightly changed questionnaire may have induced more non-white identification, specifically because the "white" race box now requires you to write your origin below, which it didn't before, and the examples they provide don't intersect at all with any Hispanic/Latino backgrounds. Still, it is the lazier choice, higher up on the form, and those examples are in smaller print.
the "white" race box now requires you to write your origin below
I just put "rural Nebraska" because if that doesn't convince them I'm white, nothing will.
Not relevant, but from Twitter:
If you don't have family or friends in #Haiti you can send money to directly, please don't rush to send money. Please, please don't send to large international organizations like the American Red Cross, which have a terrible record in Haiti. Wait a couple days for people in the affected regions, and people with ties to the affected regions, to suggest smaller groups and organizations that are best equipped to respond to this crisis.
Most people who are rescued -- whether from the rubble or from the longer consequences -- will be saved by their family, friends, neighbors, and community.
Catastrophes create solidarity more than destroying it. What destroys solidarity is the international aid apparatus.
I have a whole book about that which I haven't yet read. One thing people in the US can apparently do is advocate for a pause in deportation flights, although I'm not sure exactly how. There appears to be a FB group dedicated to local resources in Haiti, but FB basically won't load in my browser anymore, so caveat clickor.
Not to brag, but doing absolutely nothing in the face of disaster is something I'm really great at.
There is now something called PBR Hard Coffee.
I take it you're doing absolutely nothing in the face of that disaster too?
Arguably, it's too Delta-y for that, but realistically, except for airport bars and two weeks ago when I went to the same bar, I haven't been to an indoor bar since February 2020.
Completely at a tangent --
I'm going to be spending some time in the archives at Kew, I can see. I have never done serious archival research before and I'm not sure how to organise myself. They don't let you take paper notebooks in and there isn't really room on the carrel for a laptop and an open foolscap folder. What I would like to do is not just to photograph and OCR documents of interest with my phone -- and that works unnervingly well -- but to keep notes and records on which pages I'm photographing in some digital form beside that. Ideally with handwriting recognition on some kind of tablet. I do think better in some ways with an actual pen in my hand.
Does anyone have experience of trying to take OCR-ed handwritten notes on a tablet or touch screen> Does it work? Or should I just print out a batch of loose-leaf paper forms and take them in with me and (oh, martyred me!) type them up afterwards? That would certainly be a great deal cheaper.
74: I've never had much luck with it myself, but would speech-to-text on a phone or tablet work for taking notes? Otherwise, I much prefer pen and paper. I think digital would work with a lot of practice but haven't really wanted to put the practice in.
Speech to text is frowned on in libraries and archives. I'm always impressed by how well it works these days. But I think you're right and it will have to be pen and paper.
You can have paper but not a notebook?
I'm watching an Avenger movie. Honestly it's not very good, but I now understand a bunch of memes on a deeper level.
I'm somewhat shocked that the workspace isn't large enough for a laptop and the documents-- I've never worked at Kew, but that setup is standard at every library and archive I have worked at. I have no advice otherwise-- I type so much faster than I write that I've never really explored tablet note-taking options.
Photograph and OCR with an ipad, alternating with notes to yourself on ipad in handwriting, later connect notes to photos using timestamps?
They probably want you to have to pay a dime a page for their photocopier.
Moby, I think it's because they are worried we would smuggle out documents inside notebooks. Loose leaves can be seen and examined through the transparent carrier bags we have to use.
Sand: this is true of smaller documents. But I have been looking at foolscap folders of fragile wartime paper held together with treasury tags, some of which have to be supported on foam rubber wedges so they aren't opened completely flat. And when that happens, there isn't room for anything much else on the carrel.
Clew: Yes. That would work. Not sure I want to spend that much. I could use a small bluetooth keyboard with my existing Android phone. That would take up less room than a laptop. hmmm. more research needed (to make more research possible).
I've done some research there, IIRC they also have stands for cameras and such.
re: 82
Swipe style typing on a notepad (iPad, or whatever) is really quick, these days. Easily as fast as typing on a keyboard, if you can get used to it. Some bluetooth keyboards are also very good. I used to have a little folding one I used with my Android tablet and my iPhone, which was pretty decent as a typing experience. Fragile, though, It broke within a year.
However, like you, I am quite wedded to handwritten notes.
Barry, they do have those stands, but the one I tried was either broken or wouldn't fit my phone. In any case, photographing the docs is not a problem. What I need to do is to record what I photographed and when -- because the jpgs are named with time stamps -- and to make summary notes which have the time and document ID on them at the very least, although usually there will also be a note of the pith to extract. Talking about this makes my requirements clearer. Thanks.
I'm picturing you hauling the Magna Carta up to the photocopier while a nervous librarian follows.
80, 82: I also vote for iPad (or iPad Mini) with Pencil, like Clew. You don't even need to manually connect the handwritten Notes to the scans: the scan can be IN the Note, because Notes can have both handwriting and scans. You can then use Shortcuts to automate OCRing your handwriting and extracting the scans out of Notes, at the end, if you want, using something like this (but for many notes at once, not just one).
As for "not sure I want to spend that much" -- as long as you're not planning on spending more than 30 days at the archives, and can be careful, you can do it basically for free. Order iPad (2020, 8th gen, 128gb) or iPad mini (2019, 5th gen, 64gb), plus Pencil (1st gen) from amazon.uk (500 or 440GBP total), maybe a protective case, use them, then return them for a full refund (unless you fall in love with them and want to keep them). Technically that's against the return policy ("This means that new items must be returned unused and undamaged. Used items must not have any additional signs of use or damage."), but if you want to be a stickler for rules, you can order used ones from Amazon Warehouse instead, and then it's 100% legit as long as you're careful (hence a protective case). And sure, it's totally taking advantage of Amazon's generosity, but fuck Amazon, amirite?
Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?
85: Old-school practice when digital cameras were becoming more common but phones and tablets and other annotation devices were not yet, was to put an identifying label in the photo itself. Depending on the nature of the material and the rules of the archive, it could be as simple as positioning documents so that the archives' folder label is visible in the background of each shot. More effort would be to write a label yourself on note paper and position that in the shot, without accidentally losing it in the folder. You'd need to do this each time you open a folder.
I don't know what researchers do with newfangled devices these days. In 2011, I photographed the sequence of opening each container, not just the documents themselves. So I took a picture of each box before I opened it, same with folders, and then when looking at photos in sequential order I could tell where each one came from.
re: 89
That's basically how the professionals* do it, and still do it. The only difference is the quality of the camera, and the convenience of using software that handles the automatic naming and sequencing of image files.
* professionals who photograph archival records, not professional researchers or archivists.