Los Angeles Times

Latinos are getting out of the ‘other’ box on the U.S. census

Last Thursday the White House announced a long-awaited decision from the Office of Management and Budget. The new directive will allow for the use of a single “check all that apply” race/ethnicity question with options for Latino/Hispanic and Middle Eastern/North African. This is a monumental step forward in advancing data equity, not just for these groups, but for our ability to accurately compare U.S. racial groups more broadly.

For decades, the U.S. census has maintained separate questions for Latino origin and race, forcing Latinos to choose from options such as white, Black, American Indian, Asian and “other” under the race rubric. Unable to fit themselves into these categories, in 2020, nearly 44% of Latinos either did not answer the race question or marked “other.” In fact, 94% of “other” race responses to the census were Latinos. And “other” became the second-largest racial group in the country in 2020.

But according to federal guidelines, “other” is not a race. And when the Census Bureau then creates population estimates, they have to reallocate absent or “other” responses into existing racial categories. This translates into nearly half of Latinos having a race assigned for them, and in that process most have been reclassifi­ed as white.

As one can imagine, having half the racial data for your community literally made up has led to incredibly poor quality racial data for Latinos. But it also means our country’s “white” category has included people who do not identify as white in it, which affects our ability to look critically at racial disparitie­s.

Difference­s between racial groups have been muted somewhat by the inclusion of Latinos in the white category who don’t see themselves as white and are likely not seen as white by others.

To be clear, there are Latinos who identify racially as white, Black, Asian or Indigenous. But there are many — approximat­ely 70% based on the Census Bureau’s testing of the new question design — who do not see themselves in these categories and prefer “Latino” alone to describe their race.

The desire for a Latino option is rooted in current and historical realities. There is a long-standing history of racializat­ion of Latinos in this country. In Texas, for example, Mexican Americans faced Jim Crow-style segregatio­n; they were excluded from schools, public swimming pools, restaurant­s, movie theaters and even cemeteries.

Perhaps one of the most publicly shared stories of this racial Latino discrimina­tion is the story of Felix Longoria, whose body was returned to his home state of Texas in 1949 after he died fighting for his country in World War II, only to be denied burial in his hometown because the funeral home and cemetery were for “whites only.”

In my book on Mexican Americans in Texas, nearly all of the Mexican American respondent­s I interviewe­d who lived through the civil rights era recalled facing extreme forms of discrimina­tion such as attending separate schools and seeing signs on restaurant­s that said things such as “No Dogs, Negros or Mexicans.”

Discrimina­tion against Latinos continues today, and both older and younger Mexican Americans in my study spoke of racist encounters in the workplace, with police, in schools. In fact, despite legislatio­n to end school segregatio­n, today many school districts remain essentiall­y segregated for Latinos, who drop out of school at a higher rate than other groups. A Harvard University study published in 2019 found that across multiple levels — employment, housing and healthcare — Latinos reported discrimina­tory experience­s. When “Latino” is not recognized as a racial category, it is both an affront to history and a denial of these continued experience­s with racism.

Because it will be possible that many Latinos will check only the “Latino/Hispanic” box for the race/ethnicity question on the census, concerns have been raised that more specific data about this community will be lost. In fact, research conducted by the Census Bureau shows that including a Latino category in a “check all that apply” format yields more accurate data, not less. Those who identify solely as Latino may check that box; those who identify as Latino and also as white or Black or Asian or Indigenous can make that clear as well.

For example, Census Bureau research revealed that when white Latinos could identify themselves as Latino and white in the new format, those who did were actually white, as opposed to many who do not identify as white but have been assigned to that race. This means that the new format will better reflect actual racial difference­s.

This decision to change how the government asks about race and ethnicity is the first change to federal race measuremen­t standards in 27 years. It is long overdue and will much better reflect the experience­s of Latinos and Middle Eastern/North African population­s who have fought for years to get equitable data for their communitie­s.