The New American Race, Proposed Ethnic Standards; For the first time since 97

A Middle Eastern and North African category could be added to US federal surveys and censuses, and changes could be made to how Hispanics are able to identify themselves, under initial recommendations released Thursday by the Biden administration in what would be the first race update. And ethnic norms in a quarter of a century.

The federal government’s standards have not changed since 1997, two decades after they were created as part of an effort to collect consistent data on race and ethnicity across federal agencies when handling censuses, federal surveys, and application forms for government benefits.

Questions about Hispanic race and ethnicity are asked separately using the 1997 criteria. They will be combined into a single question under preliminary proposals, which were put forward by a working group of representatives from various federal agencies called for by the Office of Management and Budget.

Some advocates have been pushing for the combination of questions about race and Hispanic ancestry, saying that the way race is categorized often confuses Hispanic respondents who are unsure how to answer. Tests conducted by the Census Bureau in the 2010 census showed that combining questions resulted in higher response rates.

Using the 1997 criteria, US residents from Middle Eastern and North African countries were encouraged to identify as “white”. Under the new proposal, there would be a separate category for people often referred to as “the Middle East and North Africa”. The Census Bureau recommended adding the Middle East and North Africa category to the 2020 Census form, but the Trump administration dropped the idea.

According to a Federal Register notice from the Biden administration that will be published Friday, research indicates that many respondents in the Middle East and North Africa see their identity as different from whites — and for more than 30 years, stakeholders have called for MENA intelligence gathering. separately from the “white” census data. class.

The notice stated that among the countries of origin that will receive a check for the Middle East and North Africa category are Lebanon, Iran, Egypt, Syria, Morocco and Israel.

“This is a really big deal,” said Maya Berry, executive director of the Arab American Institute, a Washington-based civil rights group. “We’ve been working on getting checkboxed to get better data about our community for decades.”

The proposals encourage the collection of more detailed information on race and ethnicity by allowing respondents on government forms to list their country of origin when answering a question about race or ethnicity. They also recommend that the federal government delist the forms of the words “Negro” and “Far Eastern” and use the terms “majority” and “minority”, saying they could be seen as pejorative or outdated, and that standards should be “respectful of the way people refer to themselves.”

The need to update the standards was driven by an increase in racial and ethnic diversity, an increasing number of people identifying with more than one race or ethnicity, and a change in immigration and immigration patterns, according to a federal registry notice.

The working group said their proposals were preliminary and that they did not reflect the federal government’s official criteria because it would continue to disclose them with input from the public, which has until mid-April to provide comments. The goal is to ensure that “the standards better reflect the diversity of the American people,” Karen Orvis, the chief US statistician, said in a blog post.

“As we consider these recommendations, we want to hear directly from the American people,” Orvis said.

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