The US government is rethinking the meaning of race and ethnicity

Nyhiem Way is tired of people mixing African Americans and Blacks. Shalini Parekh wants a way for South Asians to identify themselves differently than East Asians with roots in places like China or Japan. And Byron Haskins wants the US to do away with racial and ethnic labels altogether.

“When you establish categories that are used to put people in boxes, sometimes you miss the truth of them,” said Haskins, who describes himself as African-American.

The voices of Way, Parekh and Haskins are among more than 4,600 comments pending before the Biden administration, which plans to update the nation’s racial and ethnic categories for the first time since 1997.

There is a lot to consider.

Some black Americans want the slavery of their ancestors to be recognized in the way they identify. Some Jews believe that their identity should be seen as their own ethnic category and not just as a religion. The idea of ​​review categories ethnic and racial identities, both in the census and in the collection of demographic information between counts, have fueled editorials and think-tank essays, as well as thousands of written comments by individuals in what is almost a Rorschach test of how Americans self-identify.

The White House Office of Management and Budget will decide on the new rankings next year and will host three virtual forums on the subject this week.

Some conservatives question the process itself, saying the general premise that Americans need more ethnic categories will only hasten balkanization.

“By creating and deepening subnational identities, the government further contributes to the decline of an American national identity,” Mike Gonzalez, senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation, wrote in his personal comment posted on the OMB website seeking input. public.

That point of view is in stark contrast to those who say that the previous categories have missed the nuances.

“This is certainly a unique time and an opportunity to improve and greatly improve the accuracy and completeness of the data,” said Mario Beovides, director of policy and legislative affairs for the NALEO Educational Fund, during a recent forum.

The proposed changes it would create a new category for people of Middle Eastern and North African descent, also known by the acronym MENA, who now classify themselves as white but say they have been routinely underestimated.

The process would also combine questions about race and ethnicity into a single query, because some advocates say the current method of asking about race and separately about ethnicity often confuses Hispanic respondents. With the reviews, the government would try to get more detailed answers about race and ethnicity by asking about country of origin.

Another proposal recommends removing the federal government forms of the words “black” and “far east,” now widely regarded as pejorative. The terms “majority” and “minority” would also be dropped because some officials say they do not reflect the nation’s complex racial and ethnic diversity.

Several African Americans, like Way, whose ancestors were enslaved, said in public comments to the OMB that they would like to be identified in a category such as American Freedmen, Foundational Black Americans, or American Descendants of Slavery to distinguish themselves from black immigrants, or even people. African-born white women, as well as reflecting the history of their ancestors in the US.

Way, who is president of the United Sons & Daughters of Freedmen, which describes itself as dedicated to restoring the broken promises of Reconstruction, also recommended replacing the word “population group” with “race.”

Combining “African American” with “black” has “blurred what it means to be African American in this country,” Way, who works for a pharmaceutical company in Athens, Georgia, said in a telephone interview.

Haskins, a retired government worker from Lansing, Michigan, suggested removing racial categories like “white” and “black” as they perpetuate “deep-seated unfair sociopolitical constructs.”

Instead, he said people should be able to self-identify however they want. When her sociologist daughter points out the difficulty of aggregating that data into something useful to address inequalities in housing or voting, or tailoring health or education programs to the needs of communities, he tells her: “Go crazy. That’s what they pay you for.”

“You need to look for the truth and not stick with the old categories because somebody decided, ‘That’s what we decided,’” Haskins said.

Parekh is calling on the government to distinguish South Asians from East Asians.

“When these groups are evaluated together, you lose a lot of important granularity that can help differentiate issues that are specific to one group and not another,” Parekh said.

The MENA community seems to have a related problem, according to various comments to the OMB. Without a category of its own, the political power of the group is diluted. People could benefit from cohesive representation, especially if identities were taken into account when drawing political districts, advocates said.

It all comes down to something even more personal for Houda Meroueh, who described herself to the Biden administration as a 73-year-old Arab American woman.

“When I go to the doctor’s office, I feel like they don’t have the information they need to understand my medical history or my culture,” she said. “For all these reasons I want you to tell me who I am. I don’t eat white.

Jordan Steiner said that the ethnic categories should be expanded to include not only MENA, but also other groups such as Jews, who are often considered not only members of a religious but also an ethnic group.

Jessica Aksoy praised the proposals to expand the categories, saying she often felt constrained about which boxes to check as someone of Turkish, European and Jewish descent.

“To recognize our differences is to honor and celebrate the rich melting pot of America,” Aksoy said. “The face of America is changing, and this initiative is to further the recognition of that.” ___

Follow Mike Schneider on Twitter at @MikeSchneiderAP