New ‘Latino’ and ‘Middle Eastern or North African’ checkboxes proposed for U.S. forms |
New ‘Latino’ and ‘Middle Eastern or North African’ checkboxes proposed for U.S. forms
All Things Considered
National Public Radio
2023-01-26
Hansi Lo Wang, Correspondent, Washington Desk
RussellCreative/Getty Images
The Biden administration is proposing major changes to forms for the 2030 census and federal government surveys that would transform how Latinos and people of Middle Eastern or North African descent are counted in statistics across the United States.
A new checkbox for “Middle Eastern or North African” and a “Hispanic or Latino” box that appears under a reformatted question asking for a person’s race or ethnicity are among the early recommendations announced in a Federal Register notice, which was made available Thursday for public inspection ahead of its official publication.
If approved, the changes would address longstanding difficulties many Latinos have had in answering a question about race that does not include a response option for Hispanic or Latino, which the federal government recognizes only as an ethnicity that can be of any race.
The reforms would also mark a major achievement for advocates for Arab Americans and other MENA groups who have long campaigned for their own checkbox. While the U.S. government currently categorizes people with origins in Lebanon, Iran, Egypt and other countries in the MENA region as white, many people of MENA descent do not identify as white people. In addition to a new box on forms, the proposal would change the government’s definition of “White” to no longer include people with MENA origins…
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