Latinos - “Some Other Race ?”

Every ten years, the Census Bureau enlightens us with the diversity and the ever-changing society of the United States. In fact, despite a difficulty in achieving an ultimate accurate survey, the Bureau spends billions of dollars in an attempt to portray the most precise picture of the demographics of the country.

One of the Bureau’s ways of breaking down the US population is by categorizing individuals according to race; however, more than in any other census, the 2010 Census proved that Latinos are increasingly in need of ‘another category’ that disregards color and even geographic origin: “ More than 18 million Latinos checked this “other” box in the 2010 census, up from 14.9 million in 2000. It was an indicator of the sharp disconnect between how Latinos view themselves and how the government wants to count them” (Garifuna). This shows the disparity between how classifying someone’s identity transcends racial categories.
It becomes increasingly evident that there is a preference to be categorized by ethnicity, ‘a set of cultural traits, like language or customs’ versus race, which ‘typically refers to a set of common physical traits’. There is a desperate calling for a classification that surpasses the physical and delves deep into the roots of what makeup an individual on the inside: “So when they encounter the census, they see one question that asks them whether they identify themselves as having Hispanic ethnic origins and many answer it as their main identifier”(Garifuna). The facts are clear- people of Hispanic origin may be of any race; therefore, the Census Bureau needs to make the appropriate adjustments if they wish to maintain a higher level of accuracy in the future.