Census definitions of race

[Lynne Murphy]

--On Wednesday, February 7, 2001 9:21 am -0800 storkrn
<storkrn at EMAIL.MSN.COM> wrote:

> Did anyone notice in Frank's earlier message (US Census definitions of
> race) that if one wants to call oneself an Alaska Native or American
> Indian one must "maintain tribal affiliation or community attachment" but
> none of the other groups is defined that way? Read the definitions
> carefully and you can call yourself "white" if your ancestors came from
> "any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North
> Africa," regardless of skin color. What are "original peoples" in this
> context? Reminds me of an earlier thread on "indiginous".


Well, there are legal reasons for this--Native Americans are the only one
of the so-called racial groups that has a specific government department,
lands, etc. dedicated to them specifically, so a most accurate count of
that group is necessary. The government (and some Native American
communities) has particular interest in having an accurate count of people
who not only self-identify as Native American (as more and more people do
these days) but also are identified by Native American tribes as members.
(Now, there are a few tribes that do not have official recognition, and
thus do not fall under the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and they can't be
counted in this category either.)

The interesting thing is that the definition for 'white' is more inclusive
than that of 'Native American' in the above definitions.  It's usually the
case that the 'prestige' group in a culture is defined exclusively, rather
than inclusively, and the other groups are more inclusive (as is seen in
the fact that people who have only one white parent are not called 'white'
but may be called 'black' or 'person of color').  So, this either means
that 'Native American' is an exception to the rule (at least in
governmentese) or that 'Native American' is a higher prestige
classification than white.  But what it really looks like is  that the
government has loosened up about racial/ethnic classification _a lot_ in
the past century, but can't for legal reasons loosen up on 'Native
American'.

Lynne

M Lynne Murphy
Lecturer in Linguistics
School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

phone +44-(0)1273-678844
fax   +44-(0)1273-671320