A curious thing happened this weekend as I was paying for a sandwich at a local eatery. The cashiers had been cooing at my baby son, marveling at his big, expressive brown eyes when all of a sudden one of them asked me: “What nationality is he?” I was so taken by surprise that it took me a while to respond.”American,” I said, but her puzzled look made me feel it was necessary to explain further. So I added, “His father is Puerto Rican and I am Peruvian.” And we left it at that.
This; however, got me thinking about the 2010 Census and how I haven’t gotten around to filling it out yet because I’m having a hard time trying to figure out how to classify my children. In fact, I don’t seem to be the only one. Several of my friends have wondered how to deal with question #8 (regarding ethnicity) and #9 (regarding race) because in many cases, these are not simple questions to answer for those of us who are first generation immigrants or consider ourselves Latina, but are married to Americans. So, for example, if your child was born in the U.S. but you are American and your husband is Mexican, is your child of Hispanic, Latino or Spanish origin? What about race? Most Latinos are more of a mixture (mestizos) than just plain White, Black or Indian.
I guess one of the reasons it’s so difficult to answer these questions is the fact that it’s extremely difficult to have a definite answer as to what is a Latino. As we’ve said in the past, we come in all different races and ethnicities.
At this point, I’m leaning toward answering “Yes” to question #8 for my two kids and adding both Peruvian and Puerto Rican under the “another Hispanic, Latino or Spanish origin.” In terms of race, I’m debating whether to go with OTHER, to check as many as I think apply (since according to the instructions you can check more than one) or to just take the easy way out and choose White—even though, by most accounts, if you took a look at any of the members of my family, we’re not really (completely) White. I mean, I’m sure both my husband and I have indigenous roots, and maybe even some Black ones.
So, what to do? I don’t really know, but one thing is for sure, once I figure it out, I’ll be sealing that envelope and I’ll mail it back so that my entire family is counted. Why? Because the results will determine how $400 billion in federal funds are allocated every year including in the particularly important area of child-related services such as schools.
I was appalled when I recently found out that more than one million children under the age of 10 were not counted in the 2000 Census. We owe to our children’s future to get them counted, so we encourage you to fill out the 2010 Census and mail it back in before April 1st.
I have the same problem, I am trying to decide where to place my girls. I have parents from Spain, I was raised in Venezuela, and I am married to an American….well, I think that I am choosing Latino and white but I am not sure that describes them. Oh well, I just need to make sure that we are count!
WOW! I just filled my form and sent it today and was wondering the same thing!! I ended up choosing Hispanic/Venezuelan and white for me and the kids. I just liked that
, if there are any rules I’ll learn them afterward!
.-= Dariela´s last blog ..Las "Blankies" =-.
Funny that this question of ‘which ethnicity’ and ‘which race’ poses such a stumbling block for many of us! This was a big topic of conversation in our home at the very start of the school year 2009 when our 17-year-old son arrived home from school with a form asking just those questions.
It seems the school was updating its profile. My son, whose father was born in the United States, has a paternal grandmother from Cuba and a paternal grandfather from Spain. My son insisted that he coose Not Hispanic/Latino. He also insisted on choosing White as the race.
When your children are of high school age, with a strong opinion, it’s interesting to see and hear their take on all of this!
.-= Beth Butler´s last blog ..I See Colors / Veo colores ~ A Spanish and English Bilingual Lesson for Kids =-.
Wow! Very intersting, Beth… I wonder how it’ll be for my children when they grow up? How will they “see” themselves? Our case is obviously different because both my husband and I are immigrants. We were not born in this country, so I don’t know how much that will influence the way they classify themselves…
Yep my son is African American and Mexican. I usually always check both. I will have to see what the choices are.
We have a group on Facebook called American and Hispanic Latino couples. If there are any Black or White Americans who are married or dating Hispanic Latinos please join the group. And indicated that you found it on a board. Here is the addy.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=104100832536
Funny how I decided to write about this and all of a sudden, I’m reading about it everywhere. Here’s a link to a Being Latino’s post that has generated a lot of comments, at least on their FB page: http://beinglatino.wordpress.com/
On my own personal FB page, there was a bit of a debate going on also regarding this post. A friend of mine in Peru wanted to know what the differences were between Latino, Hispanic and of Spanish origin – these terms are not really used in South America.
I guess, in the end, you can put down whatever you want on the form — it’s really about how you define or classify your own self…
The Census form caused quite a stir in our house along with a lot of good-natured teasing. My family members said emphatically they are not “White” (like me LOL). They’d maybe be closer to “American Indian” but for the census form that seems to be only U.S. registered tribes, not native peoples of the rest of the Americas. So we went to the “some other race” option, and then had to figure out what to write in! “Mixed” seemed so vague and non-descriptive, and besides that, they were just as emphatic they’re not “Mixed” (my son they’d call “mixed” but the rest of them being 100% Mexican). There was a debate about whether to write “Mestizo”. Unfortunately that word seems to have some strong negative connotations. But I have a feeling the census computers wouldn’t know what to do if we wrote “La Raza”, either. We all just had to laugh about it.