{"id":61365,"date":"2021-08-30T22:01:31","date_gmt":"2021-08-30T22:01:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=61365"},"modified":"2021-08-30T22:01:32","modified_gmt":"2021-08-30T22:01:32","slug":"how-the-census-misleads-on-race-a-new-diversity-index-and-a-subtle-change-in-a-question-have-resulted-in-an-undercount-of-whites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=61365","title":{"rendered":"How the Census Misleads on Race: A new \u2018diversity index\u2019 and a subtle change in a question have resulted in an undercount of whites."},"content":{"rendered":"

How the Census Misleads on Race<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Wall Street Journal<\/a>
\n2021-08-29<\/p>\n

John B. Judis<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

A new \u2018diversity index\u2019 and a subtle change in a question have resulted in an undercount of whites.<\/em><\/p>\n

The most common reaction to the release of the 2020 census<\/a> was summed up in the headline \u201cCensus Data show the number of white people fell.\u201d The data show the number of whites declining by 8.6%. This observation was often coupled with a political projection: that while gerrymandering could benefit Republicans in 2022, the political future belongs to the Democratic Party, which commands large majorities among minorities.<\/p>\n

But these conclusions about race and politics rely on misleading census results. Contrary to Democratic hopes and right-wing anxieties, America\u2019s white population didn\u2019t shrink much between 2010 and 2020 and might actually have grown.<\/p>\n

\u201cRaces\u201d are defined not by biology but by cultural convention. As late as the early 20th century, many Anglo-Americans didn\u2019t identify Southern or Eastern Europeans as \u201cwhite.\u201d In 1918, 33-year-old Harry S. Truman<\/a>, while visiting New York City<\/a>, wrote his cousin: \u201cThis town has 8,000,000 people. 7,500,000 of \u2019em are of Israelish extraction. (400,000 wops and the rest are white people.)\u201d After World War II<\/a>, Jews and Italians became identified as \u201cwhite.\u201d<\/p>\n

Something similar seems to be happening to many Americans of Hispanic and Asian origin. About 3 in 10 Hispanics and Asians intermarry, usually to a white spouse. According to a 2016 study by economists Brian Duncan<\/a> and Stephen J. Trejo<\/a>, 35% of third-generation Hispanics of mixed parentage no longer identify as Hispanic; and 55% of third-generation Asian-Americans of mixed parentage no longer identify as Asian. A 2017 Pew report found that among Americans of Hispanic origin who don\u2019t identify themselves as Hispanic, 59% said that they were seen by others as white…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new \u2018diversity index\u2019 and a subtle change in a question have resulted in an undercount of whites.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,33,14646,8,20],"tags":[14639,31809,5102,2546,5367,9705],"class_list":["post-61365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-census","category-latino","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-brian-duncan","tag-john-b-judis","tag-the-wall-street-journal","tag-u-s-census-bureau","tag-united-states-census-bureau","tag-wall-street-journal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61365"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61367,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61365\/revisions\/61367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}