{"id":6227,"date":"2010-03-22T05:09:24","date_gmt":"2010-03-22T05:09:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=6227"},"modified":"2010-11-09T22:14:45","modified_gmt":"2010-11-09T22:14:45","slug":"in-multiracial-america-the-census-puts-us-in-a-box","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=6227","title":{"rendered":"In multiracial America, the census puts us in a box"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2010\/03\/19\/AR2010031901359.html\" target=\"_blank\">In multiracial America, the census puts us in a box<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\" target=\"_blank\">Washington Post<\/a><br \/>\n2010-03-21<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.susanstraight.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Susan Straight<\/a><\/strong>, Professor of Creative Writing<br \/>\n<em>University of California, Riverside<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I received the census form in the mail last week, and I was ready. A vaguely admonitory letter from the Census Bureau had arrived the week before, urging me to fill out the form because the results would be used to &#8220;help each community get its fair share of government funds for highways, schools, health facilities, and many other programs you and your neighbors need.&#8221; It ended with a warning: &#8220;Without a complete, accurate census, your community may not receive its fair share.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s a lot of fairness and sharing and community going on. But as my three daughters and I talked about the form &#8212; and in particular its racial and ethnic categories &#8212; we started wondering: How does the census really define our community, and how would that affect whatever our fair share would be?<\/p>\n<p>The first time I got to check a census box for a child, it was 1990. I had an 8-month-old daughter with curly, brown-black hair, cinnamon-dark eyes and almond-colored skin. Her father is a mix of African, Irish and Native American; I am white; and since we could check only one box, the only option available for her was &#8220;Other,&#8221; as if she were from a different planet&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire article <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2010\/03\/19\/AR2010031901359.html\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em>Susan Straight&#8217;s new novel, &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=6229\" target=\"_blank\">Take One Candle, Light a Room<\/a>,&#8221; about a mixed-race family, will be published in October.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In multiracial America, the census puts us in a box Washington Post 2010-03-21 Susan Straight, Professor of Creative Writing University of California, Riverside I received the census form in the mail last week, and I was ready. A vaguely admonitory letter from the Census Bureau had arrived the week before, urging me to fill out [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,33,125,6,26,20],"tags":[2580,2581],"class_list":["post-6227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-census","category-identitydevelopment","category-new-media","category-politics","category-usa","tag-susan-straight","tag-washington-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6227","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=6227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6227\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}