is "latino" a race or an ethnicity?

WASHINGTON (AP) -- It long has been assumed by sociologists that Latinos eventually would be redefined as "white" as they joined the mainstream, but the Census Bureau now wants to classify Latinos as their own distinct group in the next census, in 2020.

The proposal is based on census research that finds many Latinos do not identify with the current race categories.

One possible revision, urged by Kenneth Prewitt, a former bureau director, would drop the word "race" from the census form altogether, simply offering a set of check boxes for categories such as black, white and Hispanic that is preceded by the question, "Are you ...?"

"Whether we're tabulating by income or poverty, Hispanic is treated as a de facto race," said Roberto Ramirez, chief of the Census Bureau's ethnicity and ancestry branch, in an interview. As it stands now, he says, many Latinos are checking "some other race."

By rae121452 | 03/17/2013 11:19 AM | 6 comments

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A person can be white, black or red and also Hispanic, so I'd guess from that, that Latino would be race and Hispanic would be ethnicity.

glfranklyn 03/19/2013 12:54 AM

thank you, prman. i think the whole "race" construct is scary and smacks of nazi-ism. no one is pure anything.

rae121452 03/18/2013 04:09 PM

I think this is something that is in flux. Traditionally, Hispanics have been considered to be White, so by that definition they'd be an ethnicity. However, as they have become more of a dominant force in American life and politics, that is changing, and I think they're now considered more of a separate entity.

BearinFW 03/18/2013 01:31 AM

Race still matters. It definitely should matter to a government that believes ". . . . all men are created equal." There are STILL differences in how people of color are treated and thought about. Have you ever seen those tests on TV where they tell kindergarteners a story with pictures of kids with different skin colors and then ask which pictured kid did wrong or which child should be left out, etc. The kids pick the dark skinned drawings overwhelmingly; even the black kids pick them as being in the wrong when the story doesn't lean that way at all.

I know that if my great grandparents who all came from northern Europe in the mid 1800s had instead come from Africa on slave ships, my life would be very different as a result. I would have been treated differently over the years. My family would likely not have had the financial inheritance from previous generations to back up their insistance that I go to college, etc. A wound as deep as enslavement can't be healed in a short historical time. A scar still remains. Government needs to know how different races are doing in today's world if we really believe that ALL men (women and gays too, for that matter) are indeed created equal.

rjzip 03/17/2013 10:46 PM

here's what wikipedia says:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latino

rae121452 03/17/2013 05:47 PM

Yes, it's funny, sitting in the plane to NY, filling in incredible questions, suddenly becoming aware that in the USA we are an other race (I even thought this concept wasn't valid any more...) as we are in Spain. Happily there is a return ticket.

Thinking again, it isn't funny at all.

art4you 03/17/2013 04:26 PM