LOS ANGELES — Most people don’t fit into one box, but until now that is what is asked of those filling out federal surveys such as the Census.
In response, the U.S. government is making changes to the race and ethnicity portion of the questionnaire coming in 2030.
The new format will combine the race and ethnicity questions into one as, “What is your race or ethnicity?” instead of the traditional two separate questions set-up.
The reformatted category will keep the five race options it currently has, such as White, Black or African American, Asian, American Indian or Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander.
It also will add Latino or Hispanic, and Middle Eastern or North African as options and allow for people to mark all options they feel align closest with them.
It’s a move graduate Dulce Gutierrez-McDonald is looking forward to as she says filling out forms such as the Census and FAFSA has been confusing.
“I have always had trouble finding what to pick. And I don’t think it should be that hard because I’m simply a Mexican-American girl,” Gutierrez-McDonald said.
She isn’t the only one to feel like none of the race categories offered represent her. U.S. Census Bureau research showed that more than 90% of those who marked “some other race” identified as Hispanic or Latino on the 2020 Census ethnicity question.
“[It] makes you run into that problem of what am I supposed to put down? ... I don’t feel like I would relate to white. So ‘other’ always feels like that option that I need to choose,” Gutierrez-McDonald said.
The 2020 Census data showed nearly 50 million people selected “some other race” under what they best identified with. This caused “some other race” to be the second largest race group in the country behind white.
The impact of this is detrimental toward racial equity efforts, according to Julie Dowling, associate professor of sociology and Latin American and Latino studies at the University of Illinois, Chicago.
Dowling also previously served on the Census National Advisory Committee over this issue.
“Anything that is a barrier to you filling out your Census form means you’re less likely to do it. So one of the major issues we had in 2020 was we had a 5% undercount of Latinos in the Census, which meant a lot of money and funding to our communities that we didn’t get, you know, because people didn’t fill out the form,” Dowling said.
It's why she says this change is a move in the right direction toward better data collection.
“I think it’s just going to make it a lot easier for Latinos and Middle Eastern individuals to fill out the form. You know, they’re going to be able to see themselves in there and be able to respond, which will help maybe with some of our response rates,” Dowling said.
There has been push back, as many don’t agree race and ethnicity should be grouped into one.
“So when people say this should be color, they should just be color. Well, the only two colors that have been on there are white and black. Everything else is a combination of geography and these political identities that are meaningful in our society,” Dowling said. “So the categories that should be there are the ones that are meaningful in terms of discrimination, in terms of civil rights issues that we want to look at. That’s what needs to be on the form because that’s why it’s there.”
Given Latinos are not a monolith, others are also concerned about how Afro-Latinos fit in the new format.
“By doing this, we basically allow people to check all the boxes that apply to you. So if you are a white Latino, you can check white and Latino. If you’re an Indigenous Latino, you can check both, same as if you’re black and Latino,” Dowling said.
The Census isn’t the only federal document that will make this change. Other federal, state and local agencies will have until 2029 to update their forms.