LL-L "Ethnicity" 2005.06.20 (05) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 20.JUN.2005 (05) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: Brooks, Mark <mark.brooks at twc.state.tx.us>
Subject: LL-L "Ethnicity" 2005.06.20 (02) [E]

David wrote:
"I have a Chinese - Peruvian former classmate now resident in the US who is
either Hispanic or Chinese depending on which classification is more
advantageous at a particular time."

In my previous post about adminstering a test for the U.S. Dept of Labor, I
mentioned that one section asked for race or ethnic group.  I didn't mention
the specific reason for that with regard to the test.  I wasn't going to
either, but after the continuing dialogue about ethnicity, I just can't
resist.

Mind you, I'm referring to a period of time from the 80s until the early
90s.  The test was used to qualify individuals to apply for certain jobs.
There were different "job families" that emphasized certain job activities.
For example, a writer or translator position would be based on job family 3
which emphasized vocabulary.  Other jobs that involved manual dexterity like
assembly work would emphasize the job family 5 which was based on moving
some pegs from one board with holes to another board with holes, and so
forth.  It was an aptitude test plain and simple.

Here's the problematic part.  There were different scores for different
ethnic groups.  The groups were white, black, hispanic, native american,
asian/pacific islander, and other.  Persons who designated themselves as
white were scored on the test compared to other white persons' scores.
Black was scored compared to black, and so on.  It wasn't exactly
percentiles, but it was similar.  Therefore, a person from one group would
have to have a higher raw score on the test in order to equal the score of
someone from another group.  For example, a "white" person had to have a
higher raw score on the vocabulary section than a "black" person did in
order to get the same job family score.  Likewise, for "hispanic."  If you
marked yourself as "other" you were put in the "white" group for scoring
purposes.

This scoring method was discontinued during the first Bush administration.
The test was still valid for raw scores, but the notion of job families and
the ethnic-based scoring was discontinued.  Shortly after, we stopped giving
the test completely.

I gave an example of the Brazilian woman who refused to call herself
hispanic.  She designated herself "white" instead.  I was not allowed to
explain it to her, but it was to her advantage to called herself hispanic.
That's why I was telling her that we considered her to be hispanic, if she
was a descendant of someone from the Iberian Peninsula.  It would have been
to her advantage to mark herself hispanic, but I couldn't just come out and
say that to her.

Mark Brooks

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