OT: Census "race" question

Go here for a full explanation: [url=http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/race/racefactcb.html]Racial and Ethnic Classifications Used in Census 2000 and Beyond[/url] Guatemala is actually a great example of why the US government does not treat race = ethnicity. Anyone who is from Guatemala is "Hispanic" because it is recognized as a Spanish speaking country. So Ethnicity = Hispanic. However, you can be from Guatemala and be (race): - descended from one of the original Spanish colonial families (white) - one of the Mennonites who started moving to Guatemala in the 1940s (white) - mixed Spanish and indigenous heritage but identify with the dominant, Spanish speaking culture (white or mixed depending on how you want to identify) - Garifuna -- who are descended from Afro-Caribbean slaves (black) - Ashkenazi Jews who fled Nazi Germany (white) - one of the more recent Korean or Chinese immigrants (Asian) - Maya (indigenous; there's debate as to whether American Indian applies in the US census as that is usually a term used for tribes the federal government recognizes, but it's probably the best fit on our forms) - Xinca (indigenous but non-Maya people; same debate as for Maya) So what does it mean to say you're "Guatemalan"? It can mean a lot of different things. In the US context, though a "white" Guatemalan is not going to be treated in the same way as a dark-haired, dark-skinned Guatemalan. The US government counts race and ethnicity largely in order to give the raw numbers necessary to track and rectify racism and discrimination -- which in the US is largely based on skin color. Since 1977 the US census has treated "race" separate from "ethnicity" so this is nothing new. The difference is that they used to treat "ethnicity" simply as "Hispanic or non-Hispanic" and there were four racial categories. (See "Old Standards" in the link above.) Now there are more options. Is it confusing? Yes -- especially for people who haven't had to think about it before because they're in the dominant group. Is it adequate or useful? That's up for debate. But to their credit, I think, the government is trying to come up with a couple of questions to summarize something that is very complex. I find it helpful to remember that they are not trying to capture what people's identities mean for them --- they're simply trying to get numbers so that when a business says "We didn't hire any ____ people because none live in our town" they can come back with, "Actually, ____ people do live in your town in large numbers, so we're going to look into whether there is active discrimination going on in your company." (An overly simplified example, but hopefully it conveys my point.)