Proposed census changes are insufficient

Let’s say that someone has been asked to fill out the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 census, and they’re white. How would they answer the question asking about race?

For years, so long as they weren’t anything other than white, their answer was easy: White. But as of 2020, so long as Congress approves the proposed changes for the 2020 census, white people will be asked to add more detail to their answer. In a box below the initial question, the draft of the census states: “Print, for example, German, Irish, English, Italian, Lebanese, Egyptian, etc.”

While the expansion of measuring ethnic identity is never a bad thing, the reality is that Congress’ proposal doesn’t go far enough to promote real inclusivity. The proposed census changes fail to extend that nuance to more racial categories and ensure that its changes represent the America of young people that exists today — one that the political comedian Hasan Minhaj has called a “New Brown America.”

At best,  the changes in census collection methods denote an emerging social tide, one contingent on the American notion of “progress” as a barometer of efficiency. But “progress,” a word too commonly thrown around, doesn’t necessarily happen just because something exists.

Sometimes a change might just be an acknowledgement of nuance. The first year that someone could report being “Hispanic” in the United States was 1980 — at least according to the Census Bureau’s methods of data collection. As of now, one can be white, black, Japanese, Chinese, Filipino, Korean, Vietnamese, American Indian, Asian Indian, Hawaiian, Guamanian, Samoan, Eskimo or Aleut. If, like this writer, one fell into none of these categories, he or she would have been characterized as “Other.”

In 2000, a little over 200 years after the first census data collection, an option to “mark two or more” finally emerged — a long overdue change.

But what does the proposed 2020 census change represent exactly?

Christine Emba, a columnist for the Washington Post, had a couple of smart suggestions: it’s breaking down whiteness’ standing as the norm, it’s making everyone consider a true definition of whiteness, it’s forcing white people to practice empathy for those who have always had a hard time filling out questions about their race or origins.

One of her most compelling explanations for the change’s implications was also just a statement of fact: “It’s not immediately clear how it will be put to use.”

Still, the suggested changes might be put to use in ways that are not immediately tied to the collection of census data, but still crucial, at least in the lives of young people: college applications. Under the “Profile” tab of the ubiquitous Common Application, a young applicant is asked to identify his or her race/ethnicity. The question is actually optional. As the Common Application puts it: “The questions in this section, while helpful to colleges, are entirely optional, and you’re welcome to move on without answering them.”

Regardless, for many young people, a college application form represents their first formal reckoning with their race in an institutional context.

The language on college applications does not immediately correspond with the methods of the census. For instance, while the “mark one or more” option appeared on the census in 2000 (already a few hundred years late), as The New York Times reported, options to aid in identifying a multiracial identity, namely the option to choose from multiple boxes, on college applications did not appear until 2011.

At some point, though, the proposed racial category changes to the 2020 census may appear on college applications. If that day comes, what will it mean?

Currently, the proposed amendments don’t denote progress so much as they do change.

If the U.S. Census Bureau wants to continue on its trajectory of “progress,” its creators would apply their growing proclivity for specifications in categories where self-identification has always been messier.

Progress, in terms of the proposed 2020 census data collection and its implementation in college applications, would have entailed new, separate checkboxes for people with Middle Eastern or North African roots — which research done by the Census Bureau shows could aid accuracy. It also would have provided better mechanisms for white Egyptians to identify as such. And considering the demographics of young people within the U.S. population, more nuance in the “other” (that is, multiracial) category would have been implemented as well.

Until the U.S. Census Bureau makes amendments to include more racial and ethnic categories, its changes remain incomplete.