"Hispanic" in the U.S.

[Dave Wilton]

Caribbean is not a separate category in the 2010 census. Although someone
can specify it, or Barbadian, Trinidadian, Jamaican, etc., in the "other
group" category.

Since Hispanic ethnicity is considered separately from race in the 2010
census, someone could say they were Hispanic in reply to one question and
Filipino/Guamanian to another, just as someone could say they were both
black and Hispanic or Native American and Hispanic. Filipino and Guamanian
are not listed as examples of Hispanic ancestry, however.

In my experience as an enumerator, this separation of Hispanic ethnicity
from race caused the most consternation among Hispanic respondents, save one
other question. Without exception, all the Hispanic people I interviewed
insisted that Hispanic or Latino was their race and were genuinely confused
when asked to identify themselves as white, black, native American, etc.
(Although I interviewed relatively few Hispanics in the neighborhoods I
worked; it was mostly white, black, and South Asian.)

The question that caused the most consternation was "are you male or
female?" I quickly learned to go off script and say, "This is the government
so I have to ask this, even though the answer is obvious, but do you
identify as male or female?" If I still got a dirty look, I would add, "This
is the Bay Area, so you never can be sure." That usually got a laugh and
understanding of why the question had to be asked.

(As enumerators we were expressly forbidden to answer for a respondent. We
had to record whatever they said and couldn't just skip a question because
we thought the answer was obvious.)


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
victor steinbok
Sent: Saturday, June 19, 2010 10:51 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: "Hispanic" in the U.S.

You might want to check the Census definition, but I have never heard
(1) used anywhere. And (2) is too restrictive, as LH points out. Also
Hispanic is one of the few categories that may be superimposed on
another category, e.g., one may fit into both Hispanic and African
American categories. Also, many government forms have some interesting
combinations, such as "Hispanic and NOT Hatian Creole", implying that
Hatians--who are, of course, not Spanish speakers, are also considered
Hispanic. Not sure about other Caribbeans, such as Barbados or
Trinidad (although NOT Jamaicans). On the Census, Caribbean is a
separate category, I believe. Also, it's not clear whether Filipinos
are considered Hispanic or not. It may differ from one categorization
to the next. Eventually, the Census is what determines these things
for others, but if the census categories change from one year to the
next, others may take some time to catch up.

VS-)

On Sat, Jun 19, 2010 at 11:26 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
wrote:
> At 9:43 AM -0400 6/19/10, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>>In the U.S. today, is "Hispanic" used predominantly in sense 1,
>>"Pertaining to Spain or its people; esp. pertaining to ancient
>>Spain", or sense 2, "Spanish-speaking, esp. applied to someone of
>>Latin-American descent living in the United States"?  And how much
>>predominantly?
>
> I seem to recall at least anecdotal evidence suggesting that
> individuals from Spain are not counted as Hispanic.  It's often used,
> like Latino/a, for 'pertaining to someone from Latin America or of
> Latin American descent', often including Brazilians, who of course
> are not Spanish-speaking.
>
>>
>>Can someone reproduce the 2010 U.S. census choices related to
>>"Hispanic" and race or not-race?  (I'm a bit lazy at the moment.)
>>
> It would also be relevant to see how the category is defined for
> purposes of affirmative action in, say, college admission materials.
>
> LH

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