Question

Begin by reading this reference information about race and ethnicity:

The U.S. Census Bureau must adhere to the 1997 Office of Management and Budget (OMB) standards on race and ethnicity which guide the Census Bureau in classifying written responses to the race question. The 1997 OMB guidelines permit the reporting of more than one race.

White – A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa.

Black or African American – A person having origins in any of the Black racial groups of Africa.

American Indian or Alaska Native – A person having origins in any of the original peoples of North and South America (including Central America) and who maintains tribal affiliation or community attachment.

Asian – A person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippine Islands, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander – A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Hawaii, Guam, Samoa, or other Pacific Islands.

An individual’s response to the race question is based upon self-identification. The Census Bureau does not tell individuals which boxes to mark or what heritage to write in. For the first time in Census 2000, individuals were presented with the option to self-identify with more than one race and this has continued since. People who identify with more than one race may choose to provide multiple races in response to the race question. For example, if a respondent identifies as "Asian" and "White," they may respond to the question on race by checking the appropriate boxes that describe their racial identities and/or writing in these identities on the spaces provided.

What is Race?

The racial categories included in the census questionnaire generally reflect a social definition of race recognized in this country and not an attempt to define race biologically, anthropologically, or genetically. In addition, it is recognized that the categories of the race item include racial and national origin or sociocultural groups. People may choose to report more than one race to indicate their racial mixture, such as “American Indian” and “White.” People who identify their origin as Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish may be of any race.

OMB requires five minimum categories: White, Black or African American, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, and Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander. The Hispanic / Latino category is not defined as a race as Hispanics can be of any race. Hispanics are defined as an ethnic group.

Reasons for Collecting Information on Race

Information on race is required for many Federal programs and is critical in making policy decisions, particularly for civil rights. States use these data to meet legislative redistricting principles. Race data also are used to promote equal employment opportunities and to assess racial disparities in health and environmental risks.

By using the above information and the timeline, answer the following questions:

1) In which racial/ethnic category would a person from Libya be categorized in 2020?

2) What was the first census (year) that persons from Puerto Rico were identified and counted as Hispanic/Latino?

3) In 1959, both Alaska and Hawaii became states. How did the categorization of race change in the 1960 Census to accommodate the change?

4) Though the census doesn’t ask a question about one’s religion, there was one census (year) that categorized an Asian group by the name of their religion. What was the name of that religion.

5) In the 1860 Census, only certain Indians were enumerated. What was the criteria that determined if they should be counted.

6) Essay Question (5 to 6 paragraphs expected; points deducted for improper punctuation, grammar and spelling.)

The terminology used to categorize persons in the Black population has changed several times since the 1st census in 1790.

What terms have been used? Mention each of the terms and define, as necessary.

What does this say about how society has changed in the way it has looked upon the Black population over the decades?

Answer 1

1) Asian, 2)1969 3)after Alaska and Hawaii each received statehood in 1959, the 1960 Census saw the addition of the terms “Aleut,” “Eskimo” and “Hawaiian” 4) Buddhism 5) those American Indians who were considered assimilated (for example, those who settled in or near white communities). 6) see below.

Step-by-step explanation:

From the moment of the first American census, in 1790, through every decennial census we've had since, the categories the U.S. government has used to classify its residents have included the word "white."

That label has been the lone constant in an ever-evolving checklist of identities that reflect the changing demographics of this country — and the changing language the government has used to define it. In 1790, the three categories available were "free white females and males," "all other free persons" and "slaves." By 1830, that last category had splintered into "slaves" and "free colored persons." By 1890, the census separately counted blacks — now all legally free — as "blacks," "mulattos," "quadroons" and "octoroons."

These changes, the Census Bureau points out, have been driven by cultural and economic shifts, by events like emancipation, immigration and the civil rights movement. And the bureau, to this today, is still in some cases looking for the right words to capture the complex question of identity.

Because these are facts the media seldom report, the black underclass continues to define black America in the view of much of the public. Many assume blacks live in ghettos, often in high-rise public housing projects. Crime and the welfare check are seen as their main source of income. The stereotype crosses racial lines. Blacks are even more prone than whites to exaggerate the extent to which African Americans are trapped in inner-city poverty. In a 1991 Gallup poll, about one-fifth of all whites, but almost half of black respondents, said that at least three out of four African Americans were impoverished urban residents. And yet, in reality, blacks who consider themselves to be middle class outnumber those with incomes below the poverty line by a wide margin.

Beginning in the 1940s, however, deep demographic and economic change, accompanied by a marked shift in white racial attitudes, started blacks down the road to much greater equality. New Deal legislation, which set minimum wages and hours and eliminated the incentive of southern employers to hire low-wage black workers, put a damper on further industrial development in the region. In addition, the trend toward mechanized agriculture and a diminished demand for American cotton in the face of international competition combined to displace blacks from the land.

As a consequence, with the shortage of workers in northern manufacturing plants following the outbreak of World War II, southern blacks in search of jobs boarded trains and buses in a Great Migration that lasted through the mid-1960s. They found what they were looking for: wages so strikingly high that in 1953 the average income for a black family in the North was almost twice that of those who remained in the South. And through much of the 1950s wages rose steadily and unemployment was low.

There is no obvious explanation for this alarming turnaround. The early gains doubtless had much to do with the growth of the black middle class, but the black middle class did not suddenly begin to shrink in the late 1980s. The poverty rate was not dropping significantly when educational progress was occurring, nor was it on the increase when the racial gap began once again to widen. The huge rise in out-of-wedlock births and the steep and steady decline in the proportion of black children growing up with two parents do not explain the fluctuating educational performance of African-American children. It is well established that children raised in single-parent families do less well in school than others, even when all other variables, including income, are controlled. But the disintegration of the black nuclear family—presciently noted by Daniel Patrick Moynihan as early as 1965—was occurring rapidly in the period in which black scores were rising, so it cannot be invoked as the main explanation as to why scores began to fall many years later.