The Census and Race/Ethnicity
* Read through these instructions first. Then proceed through this document, starting at the
top. Step 3 contains the actual post questions.
Step 1: Open up two tabs for these sites so you can go back and forth:
The first link above is the U.S. Census Bureau of Questions. This page of the website has links to
each census decade’s questions.
Step 2: Choose three different years from the first link , with at least one being from 1790 to
1860) and look at the questions asked about race.
Note: The first nine censuses (1790–1870) included assistant marshals to conduct the actual
enumeration. The census enumerators were typically from the village or neighborhood and
often knew the residents. Before enabling self-identification on the censuses, the US Census
Bureau relied on local people to have some knowledge of residents. Racial classification was
made by the census enumerator in these decades not by the individual.
Beginning in 1940, the options for race no longer appear on the questionnaire, so the second
link above- instructions for the enumerator (census taker) is included so you can see how race
was defined.
Also, this part of an article explains how race was determined:
This is an excerpt from a Census FAQ 2000:
Question: How will data on race be presented?
Answer: Data on race will be shown using several different options. For example, in the Public
Law 94-171 (redistricting) file, data will be shown for 63 racial categories. These include White
alone, Black or African American alone, American Indian and Alaska Native alone, Asian alone,
Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone, Some other race alone and 57 possible
combinations of the above six categories.
In data products where it will not be possible to show 63 racial categories, such as the
Demographic Profiles, data will be shown for seven mutually exclusive and exhaustive
categories. The seven categories are White alone, Black or African American alone, American
Indian and Alaska Native alone, Asian alone, Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone,
Some other race alone, and Two or more races. The two or more races category represents all
those respondents who reported more than one race.
A third option provides data about people who reported a race either alone or in combination
with one or more other races. For example, the White alone or in combination category
consists of those respondents who reported White, whether or not they reported any other
races. In other words, people who reported only White or who reported combinations such as
“White andBlack or African American,” or “White and Asianand American Indian and Alaska
Native” are included in the White alone or in combination category. Using this option there are
six alone or in combinations groups: White alone or in combination; Black or African American
alone or in combination, American Indian and Alaska Native alone or in combination, Asian
alone or in combination, Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone or in combination,
and Some other race alone or in combination. If the number of people in these six categories is
calculated, it will equal the total number of responses and will generally exceed the total
population.
Here is a link to FAQ on race in the 2020 census:
management/release/faqs-race-ethnicity.html
This link takes you to some color-coded maps and charts if you are a visual person and are
interested:
Step 3 -YOUR post:
a) In your discussion post, state what you found about how the racial categories changed over
time, briefly describing how they changed.
b) Were there political shifts and motivations behind changing definitions? You can do an
internet search by decade to see what was going on in America in certain years/decades to help
with the historical background. Wikipedia also has plenty of information about the census and
important events happening in those decades, for example
At the bottom of that Wikipedia page is a link to each census year and the associated Wikipedia
page.
You can also approach the historical data by a search like this
and looking at the
subcategories. There is a link to “articles and events specifically related to the year 1930.”
c) Based on what you found, what role do you think the government has played in the
definition, creation, and maintenance of racial and ethnic groups?
**Your post should answer the questions posed under “Step 3 Your Post”: a), b), c)
Reply to one group member with insightful commentary.
