Talk:Ethnicity (United States Census)

Universal Terms should be used[edit]

Minor point, but should clear up the difference between "African American" and "African". People in African nations are not "Americans"! Same difference as "Asian American" and "Asian".

On the question of merging[edit]

I suggest we do NOT merge this article with Race (US Census). They are two distinct categories on the Census, and they deserve different articles.--Citynoise 17:38, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I also agree they are distinct and should not be merged.--Dark Tichondrias 03:07, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Given the overwhelming response in favor of merging the articles, I've removed the merge tags from this article and Race (United States Census). ClairSamoht - Help make Wikipedia the most authoritative source of information in the world 22:37, 18 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't understand[edit]

Why would be black hispanics in the black category and not whites???

criticisms of the US census[edit]

What about portuguese? They are latinos too.~~Antonoi

The Portuguese and Spanish (spaniards?) from Spain are not "latinos". There are Europeans. "Latino" refers the people of Middle and South America along with the Spanish speaking caribbean countries including Puerto Rico. Exception: French Guyana, Suriname, the former British colonies, the Netherlands Antilles with Aruba, the French Antilles. Example: Angolans are not Latinos eventhough they speak Portuguese. Filipinos are not Latinos, even if most have Spanish heritage and/or names.

Antonoi needs an history lesson. The only Latinos (Latins) are: Number one the Italians,the French,the Spanish,the Portuguese and the Romanian. The Latin,the Language and Culture and Civilization comes from Italy and not from the so-called "Latin America" whose name was invented by the French who called it "Amerique Latine" for themselves,the Spaniards and the Portuguese. Without going to a great length I would advice the fake "Latinos" to visit the following website and educate themselves. http://www.reallatins.us. It's long overdue,really. By learning they should concentrate on the Roman History and its development and where the Latin Language and Civilization comes from from:Italia. Those who call themselves "Latinos" are nothing else than Ibero-Indians and have no Latin Culture. Their own claim is that they speak a language which originated from the Latin of Italy and this goes for the Brazilians too. Some Spanish speaking people of the "Americas" (" America" from Amerigo Vespucci,Italian ) have dropped the Latino and for good reasons. Go to visit them at: http://www.mexica-movement.org Have fun and stop denigrating the greatest culture that ever existed: The Roman/Italian/Latin Culture.

Merge?[edit]

I am proposing that the article, Ethnicity (United States Census) be merged into the article, Race (United States Census). The former consists of a few quotes, completely without context, from the 2000 Census. The latter already includes a section on ethnicity with some of the same quotes (this time in some context). I understand that "ethnicity" is a different concept than "race," but the ethnicity article really doesn't say much. The page can have a redirect to Race (United States Census), where the distinction between two concepts is made.--Vbd (talk) 09:43, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's a bad idea. People already confuse these concepts enough as it is. Besides, if it's the present size of the article that bothers you, I don't see why it should. For instance, we don't go around merging stubs into larger, related articles just based on size. In time this article too will grow. If we 'must' merge them, I'd rather see a three-way merger (so to speak) of these two into Racial demographics of the United States, with a name change to "Race and ethnicity in the United States". SamEV 03:15, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's not the size of the article that's bothering me, it is the substance of it, or lack thereof. The article consists primarily of quotes from the 2000 Census, with absolutely no context or explanation offered. At least when the same information was in the Race article (I notice that you recently removed it), it was in some context.

I would be in favor of merging the two and changing the name of the article to "Race and Ethnicity on the United States Census." I'm not sure about the three-way merger; I'll have to take a closer look.--Vbd (talk) 20:45, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As a researcher on Hispanic/Latino health, I would find it useful if the race and ethnicity articles were merged into an article entitled "race and ethnicity in the United States Census". Research suggests that many Latinos do not make the distinction between race and ethnicity. 97% of the people who reported that they were "some other race" in the 2000 Census are Hispanic or Latino, and 42% of Hispanics or Latinos reported that they were "some other race". There is some talk among population researchers of simply asking about ancestry and then aggregating/recoding those reponses into the more general categories...that way, while we continue to debate the difference between race and what is ethnicity in the U.S., at least we'll have data that are meaningful to Census respondents. MRW —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.208.221.2 (talk • contribs) 1 April 2007, 10:26

The notions of "race" and "ethnicity" are often conflated in practice. For example, as noted here, for some institutions Hispanic is a race, but for others it's an ethnicity. So I guess I'm not opposed to the merger. FilipeS

That section of the Race article and the one preceding it had a few errors and missing citations, which I've just editted. SamEV 03:26, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I support the merger, both because "race" and "ethnicity" are often used interchangeably in self-identification and in popular conceptions of race/ethnicity, and because it makes sense to understand the racial and ethnic classifications as a whole as opposed to flipping back and forth between articles. Calliopejen1 19:39, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Another argument in favor of merging: while today the US Census distinguishes between race and ethnicity, it by no means always done so.[1] If this article is to eventually to be historically complete, discussing all historical racial/ethnic classifications by the census, it would be even more confusing to have two articles. Calliopejen1 23:29, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My initial reaction was "No! They're separate!" but having looked at the level of overlap in topics and in the table, and the reasons given here, I think the suggestion of a merged article called "Race and ethnicity in the U.S. Census" is an excellent solution. Support.Lawikitejana 08:00, 16 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Update: Looked at the "Racial demographics" article, and I do think the three should be merged, but it would take wiser minds than mine to do it well. I still think "Race and ethnicity in the U.S. Census" would be the best title for the merged article.Lawikitejana 08:52, 16 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Don't forget Ancestry (United States Census) which is equally related and has much more material. Also, this merger proposal was started because this article was short (see top of this page) but all the discussion before your post occurred before expansion of the article. --JWB 09:02, 16 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I see the merger was executed while I was away. Tabulating the opinions above:

2-way merge: Vbd (on grounds that were valid at the time but not later), MRW, Calliopejen1
3-way or greater merge, but not just 2-way: Lawikitejana, JWB, SamEV
No merge: JWB, Citynoise, Dark Tichondrias
Neutral: FelipeS

This is hardly an overwhelming consensus as was claimed. If so, the merger was unilaterally executed on false grounds. --JWB 15:30, 25 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]