We
live in one of the most diverse countries in the world. Because of this we tend
to confuse ethnicity and race when it comes to defining a specific group.
Defining some groups as an ethnicity and some as a race would not be completely
correct, causing them to be frustrated and annoyed. Some people identify
themselves by their ethnicity and others by their race. People of the Hispanic
or Asian race often have their ethnicity mistaken. For example, I have a friend
that is Argentinean and when someone says that he is Mexican, he argues back
and says that he is Argentinean and not Mexican because he is proud of his
culture.
I feel that the Census questions that ask about race and ethnicity are not
completely on point. For question 9, you are asked to check the boxes that you
think your race is, but they have race and ethnicity mixed together. Race
should only be White, Asian, or African American. Ethnicity should describe
what type of race you are, such as: Puerto Rican, Vietnamese, or Japanese.
Filling out the Census for myself was really easy because it has my ethnicity
in there. If I were a mixed race, then I think that I would have a much harder
time checking the boxes because not all ethnicity are on the Census and you
would have to fill in the blanks. I believe that the racial and ethnic categories
that the Census puts out do not have an influence on the racial and ethnic
categories that we use on the everyday basis. To me it does not matter how
others see you as or whether if your race/ethnicity is not on the Census, what
matters is how you see yourself. For example, according to the Buzfeed.com article
on the 34 celebrities that we would never know that was of mixed raced; we
would never know that Ne-Yo is a quarter Chinese, although he might identify
himself as black.
Ethnicity and race are commonly
mistaken as the same, but if you look at the technical difference race is based
on our physical appearance and ethnicity is based more on our culture and
religion. The Census questions are not precise because it confuses ethnicity
with race. No matter what you have to check off on the Census or how others see
you as, only you will be able to identify yourself as what race or ethnicity
you are.
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Hi Phong,
ReplyDeleteIt does seem that the Census is mixing up the definitions of race and ethnicity that we are using in class. This problem because particularly acute for folks who identify as Latino/Hispanic/Chicano- we will delve further into this on Monday. It would be an interesting conversation to have with your friend who is Argentinian. Also, I think you are right about being of mixed-race- for the first time in 2000, the Census allowed people to mark more than one race, and (no surprise here) they found that a lot of people, particularly people in your and my generation, marked more than one race.
--eas