Race is a very small word that had caused countless amounts
of big problems in our society over the years. This blog will not speak of the
wars or protests over race, but more the proper identification of the races we
feel we already know, but do not. The United States has become numb to the fact
that there are many different races and ethnicities in our borders that do not
fit one of the 15 categories that they give people to choose from during the
2000 and 2010 census.
If you already don’t know what a census is, it is when the government
spends a lot of money to have everyone counted. When I say counted, I mean
filling out a questionnaire that asks for a lot of information but the main
ones are age, sex, and of course race. Which brings us the 15 races that the
United States feels everyone should fit into. For those who don’t fit into the
cookie cutter answer there is a box for the answer of “other.” The problem is
that many people of Latin American or Spanish descent feel like they don’t fit
into any of the common answers that are given on the form. In fact in the year
2000 census the census bureau stated that 14.9 million people of Latin American
or Spanish descent answered other in the race categories because they felt that
they were not properly identified. That number increased to 18 million in the
2010 census.
The root cause of this misidentification is how the
government is viewing Latinos and how they are viewing themselves. The
government and census bureau is more focused on how a person looks by identifying
people by their common physical traits. On the opposite side of things, Latinos
identify themselves by their ethnicity which can be summed up by their common
language, traits, and customs. The form had a question about being from Hispanic,
Latin, or Spanish origin but it seems that is not specific enough.
I feel the form should be less cookie cutter to accommodate
the fastest growing minority in the United States, not everyone is white,
black, or other anymore. It is problem when there are over 50 million Latinos
in the United States today, and 18 million of them feel like they are not
properly identified. It is time to change the form. How are people of Hispanic,
Latin, and Spanish ever supposed to feel like this is their home if they feel
the government is counting them as other? There are many other problems associated
with the misidentification of people in the United States. Another one is how
it affects the political environment. Gary
M. Segura, a political science professor at Stanford, stated that the racial effect “weakens
the political effectiveness of Latinos as a group.” I feel that this statement is accurate because
people from Hispanic, Latin, or Spanish origin can’t identify
with each other which makes it harder for their points to be heard because it
is a smaller voice. Where as if they were to come together in terms of their indemnification
it would be one big voice being heard instead of many little ones.
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