The American population has increasingly become quite diverse since the 1790s when the population was only meant for apportionment. During that time, the population was classified based on three categories: race, free persons, and slaves or blacks, which were regarded as three-fifths. However, the little boxes appearing on the US Census Bureau forms increased to classify the population based on race. Over the years, some census information was added, changed, while others eliminated. For example, the Latinos were only recognized by the census form in the 1970s and the question about the origin or descent only emerged in the 2010 version. It is not surprising that some Americans may at one time be recognized as slaves while at times they may be Black, African American or Negros.
In 1850s, the influx of new populations incited issues regarding ethnicity and national origin. The census questions and categories have been taking different trajectories due to design changes that occur from one census to the next. The possibility of changing racial decent may be due to suspicion over social issues like racial violence, which are majorly linked to immigrant groups. This implies that anyone of black origin could easily be regarded as a slave, African American, or a Negro since to become an American, you must first become white. Therefore, the boxes designed for census purposes do not clearly define racial and ethnic identities.
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From the foregoing, the decennial census takes different directions due to changing questions regarding race and ethnicity. Notably, the questions referred to in this case change every 10 years due to the changing racial and ethnic composition of the US population. Additionally, the transitioning political issues and social attitudes greatly influence how people are grouped, especially when the government wants to fulfill its interests regarding national data. This is why the increased racial and ethnic diversity during the 1970s to the 21 st century have heightened political debates to restructure census content, methods of the census, and how it generally influences public cooperation.
Further, the changing racial considerations may be due to the US constitutional amendments including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The changes resulted in changing the interpretation of race, especially due to transitioning geographical factors (Shrestha & Heisler, 2011). The government may consider some individual blocks differently to meet their predetermined desires regarding the enforcement of federal, state, or local civil rights statutes. Consequently, it would fit their fund allocation programs and legal requirements with respect to race and ethnicity data (Strmic-Pawl, Jackson & Garner, 2018). Additionally, the government changed the census data to meet their survey information and administrative information to satisfy its legislative requirements regarding data and ethnicity.
Also, items describing ethnicity increased during the 1970s onwards and the exact wordings of items continue to vary. For example, the items related to ethnicity depend on the changing descriptions of the nativity, immigration, and origins. This is why the 1970 census introduced the Hispanic origin and the open-ended ancestry in the following decade. Therefore, the changing policy and programmatic needs compelled the US government to consider people differently to improve the enumeration of different races.
Finally, the census bureau intends to use population tabulations for redistricting purposes under the P.L. 94-171 of 1975. Notably, the changing racial categories during census are due to the need to provide accurate and timely population counts in remote areas to facilitate making administrative decisions (United States Census Bureau, 2017b). Therefore, grouping individuals based on the federal standard for race and ethnicity data determines whether citizens are to be classified as black, white, or American Indian (United States Census Bureau, 2017a). This helps in reducing differential undercount by accounting for remote areas that rarely receive special enumeration procedures.
References
Shrestha, L. B. & Heisler, E. J. (2011). The Changing Demographic Profile of the United States. CRS Report for Congress. https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL32701.pdf
Strmic-Pawl, H. V., Jackson, B. A. & Garner, S. (2018). Race Counts: Racial and Ethnic Data on the U.S. Census and the Implications for Tracking Inequality. Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, Vol. 4(1) 1–13. American Sociological Association. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2332649217742869
United States Census Bureau. (2017a). Race & Ethnicity. https://www.census.gov/mso/www/training/pdf/race-ethnicity-onepager.pdf
United States Census Bureau. (2017b). Our Research: Research to Improve Data on Race and Ethnicity. https://www.census.gov/about/our-research/race-ethnicity.html
