Kansas State University 9th Annual Cultural Studies
Symposium:
"WHO COUNTS? WHAT COUNTS AND HOW? the Census
2000,"
March 9-11, 2000.
Panel on "Color Lines: Nation, State, and the
Proliferation of
Race"
####
Theodore W. Allen
"RACE" AND "ETHNICITY": HISTORY AND THE 2000
CENSUS
From
the first year of its existence until the African-American civil rights
struggles of the 1960s, the United States government defined the population
strictly in "race" terms; you were "white" or you were not "white."(1)
Now, in acknowledged reaction to effects of that struggle,
the government has decreed that for the first time in its history, this
country is to have an officially established distinct population category that
is neither "white" nor not-"white."(1)
As
far as the popular media go, however, this historic change in statistical policy
is honored only in the footnote - "Hispanics can be either white or black," or,
"Hispanics can be of any race" - appended to statistical tables, charts, and
graphs relating to social and economic issues, beginning in the 1980s. A
simple question that any school child might ask seems not to have occurred to
our media pundits and editorialists: If Hispanics can be of any race, then why
not everybody else? (2)
Can it be that too much American history is bound up in
European-American "white" identity to allow it to be threatened through mere
checking of boxes on a census
form?
The
purpose of this essay is to consider the significance of this change within the
context of not just the history of the census, but of American political
history. It is a change with a Janus face. One aspect turns toward
new forms of "race-ethnic" political divisions, designed in effect to preserve
the democratic gloss of a "white" plurality.(3) The
other aspect envisions the expunging of "race" as an official United States
census and general statistical category.
At the conclusion of a wide-ranging three-and-a-half decade discussion involving
social and political scientists, geographers, historians, sociologists, and
statisticians, inside and outside the United States Census Bureau, and with the
participation of representatives of census agencies of a number of other
countries, and through a series of United States Congressional hearings, two
basic facts appeared certain: First, there is no consensus on the meanings
of "ethnicity" and "race"; and, second, census and other official formulations
in regard to these concepts are political
acts.
In
1992, the United States and Canadian governments organized an international
conference on "the Measurement of Ethnicity. " After considering papers
and discussions that produced a record of nearly six hundred pages, the
Conference was forced to confess that "participants reached a consensus that
there was no universally acceptable definition of ethnicity."(4)
Two top officials of the Census Bureau who had leading roles
in the convening of that conference, after surveying the sociological and
anthropological literature, were led to conclude that there is "a lack of
consensus about the definition of ethnicity."(5) When
sociologist Charles Hirschman, was consulted on the subject, he declared
that, "...the entire concept of race and ethnicity is based on a false
assumption."(6) What is ethnicity?," he asks, "The
fact [is] that there is no simple answer to this question...."(7)
Nevertheless,
despite "the logical flaws in its categorization" expressed in the original 1977
Office of Management and Budget Order 15, and in the face of a growing
"understading of racial and ethnic identity as a social
construct,"(8) the OMB reissued Order 15
on October 30, 1997, elaborated on its definitions for "race" and "ethnicity,"
and ordered that "they be used by the Bureau of the Census in the 2000 decennial
census," and by "other Federal programs...as soon as possible, but not later
than January 1, 2003."(9) Although the Order appeared
to make a concession to the "race as a social construct" thesis,(10)
it still left open the back door for "biological or genetic"
interpretations of race, by "explaining" that, "The racial and ethnic categories
set forth in the standards should not be interpreted as being ¯primarily_
biological or genetic."(11) But, since, in the natural
order of the world, genes and biology are precedent to "social constructs," if
they are admitted into discussion they are necessarily primary. The
"social construct" approach to "race" and "ethnic" categories, on the one hand,
and biological theories of race as a phenomenon of physical anthropology, on the
other, belong to different and mutually exclusive spheres, neither "primary"
over the other. If that is not understood, the "social construct" approach
to "race" cannot be
sustained.
The
"race" categories as established in OMB Order 15, were 1) American Indian
(which is to include Latin American Indians) or Alaskan Native; 2) Asian; 3)
Black or African American; 4) Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander; and 5)
"White." Persons "of Spanish culture or origin" - Mexicans, Puerto Ricans,
Cubans, South or Central Americans, and unspecified others, are collectively
classed as an "ethnic group", "regardless of race."(12)
Aside
from the questionable logic of this categorization, its application can result
in gross inconsistency in statistical tables of key importance, as witness the
figures provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics regarding total labor force,
employed, and unemployed, and the unemployment rate. In these statistics,
the sum of White, Black, and Hispanic, in 1998, for example, exceeded the
"total," by the following respective extents: civilian labor force, by
5.6%; the number of employed, by 11.7%; and the number unemployed, by
5.8%. A footnote says these discrepancies occur because "Hispanics are
included in both the white and black population groups."(13)
Correction
might possibly be made by classifying the entire civilian labor force by
"race." That would mean, however, that those classed as "Hispanic whites"
would be excluded from the "protected groups" established under the civil rights
laws. But, since many claims under those laws, as well as the political
clout, of the respective "protected groups" in the game of ethnic politics, are
keyed to their numbers, Hispanic group spokesmen have rejected that option as a
threat to the group's
interest.
Or,
why not permit those persons who have one parent of one "race" and the other of
a different "race" - who are estimated to make up nearly five per cent of the
total population(14) - to be listed in two
"races?" That would, of course, result in some duplication, but certainly
not any more, probably much less, than occurs in the such tables as that cited
above from the Monthly Labor Review. But even that duplication in
totals could be avoided if each such respondent was counted as two halves,
adding accordingly to the counts of their respective parental
"races."
Or,
again, why not abandon the census category, "race," mired as it is in racial
slavery and white supemacism, and replace it with "ethnicity", not just for
"Hispanics," but for all?(15) Ethnicity could be
broken down according to place of origin or descent, such as African-American,
Asian, European-American, Hawaiian and Pacific Islander, Indigenous people,
Latino, and "Other." Although that might encounter objection from those
for whom their "white" identity is important, it would seem to present no
obstacle to the maintenance of the positive race pride of African Americans in
its many
forms.
In
advancing such speculative remedies of error of duplication, I do not seek to
usurp the role of those properly credentialed in such matters. Rather, my
purpose is to highlight the following problem: Why did the government
decide to adopt such questionable principles of categorization, and to persist
in applying those principles in ways that may seriously impair the accuracy of
the statistics produced as a result?
Census-making is above all, a political
process
In
any case, before the census can take the form of statistical tables, census
makers must first decide, to borrow from the title of this Ninth Annual
Conference suggests: What counts in determining whom to count how.
Are all respondents to be counted as to their "race?" Is classification to
be according to self-identification of respondents, or by census-takers and
other observers? How and to what extent is "ethnicity" to be a
consideration? All these are matters involving fundamental political
judgments.(16)
Eminent
specialists convened at the 1992 Ottawa conference to consider the problem of
"ethnic" classification in census-making, emphasized repeatedly the political
character of the process. As two top Census Bureau officials put it:
"[T]hroughout United States census history, socio-political factors have
influenced the development of the ethnic questions, their categories and
terminology.... development of [census] questionnaire content is not an exercise
in social science research conducted in a vacuum....It also involves a
sensitivity to data needs as expressed through the political
process."(17)
It
was, then, a political decision when the United States government, through OMB
Order 15, contrived the exclusive "race-neutral" category and named it
"Hispanic,"(18) an appellation not encountered in Latin
American censuses. An analysis of the "ethnic" composition of the
seventeen Spanish-speaking countries of Latin America (not including Puerto
Rico) indicates that only three - Argentina, Uruguay, and Costa Rica, with only
a combined nine per cent of the total Spanish-speaking population of Latin
America - had "Caucasian/white" ethnic majorities.(19) The term "Hispanic" was imposed despite the historic fact that those
countries were born to independence in a struggle against "Hispanic"
colonialism.(20) Mexican-Americans, who in Mexico take
pride in their mestizaje, their "mixed-race"
tradition,(21) are to be "Hispanicized," with no
allowance made for any "mestizo," nor, indeed, for any other multi-ethnic
category.
The Conventional
Rationale
The
conventional rationale for contriving the change from the strict white/not-white
classification to the tri-partite scheme - white, not-white, and neither white
nor black - is premised on the remarkable increase in the non-European
proportion of the population of the United States in the last third of the
twentieth century. The Academy of Sciences National Research Council,
concluded that this changed aspect of the population made necessary a "federal
classification system...to reflect the realities of the U. S. society."
The fact that "the United States population is more racially and 'ethnically'
diverse than at any other time in our history," was a major consideration of the
top-echelon functionaries of the U. S. Census Bureau.(22)
It
is true that of the 16.3 million immigrants entering the United States between
1971 and 1994, inclusive, 85 percent came from non European countries: 47% from
North and South America (including the Caribbean, but excluding Canada); 36%
came from Asia; and 2% from Africa, while only 15% came from Europe and
Canada.(23) This predominance of non-European
immigration since enactment of the Immigration Act of 1965 and the Immigration
Regulation and Control Act (IRCA) of 1985, and the projections of a United
States population made up predominately of non-European-Americans by 2050,
are matters that must be taken into account by demographers and
census-makers, as well as sociologists and historians. It is a truism that
"[N]ational statistics must change in response to social and political
changes..."(24) One may well agree with the judgment
of Urban Institute demographers Passel and Edmonston that, "the response to the
new [predominantly non-European] immigrants will be a major determinant of the
country's future."(25)
But why should that response require a political decision to alter
the fundamental categories of the population so as to produce this particular
tri-partite form and do so at this particular time, establishing a distinct
population category that is neither "white" nor "not-white"?(26)
Non-Europeans have been added to the population of the
United States, by territorial conquest (Mexico, Hawaii, Puerto Rico); by two
decades of Chinese labor immigration (ineligible for U. S. citizenship under the
Burlingame Treaty of 1868), until even this restricted access was closed by the
passage of the (subsequently re-enacted) Oriental Exclusion Act of 1882;(27)
and later by voluntary immigration, particularly from the
European colonies in the Caribbean region late in the nineteenth century and
early in the twentieth.(28)
The
fundamental answer, I would venture, lies in the problem of maintaining
ruling-class social control, "insuring domestic tranquility," by manipulation of
"race/ethnicity," in the face of this latest non-European immigrant wave that
arrives in a country transformed by the African-American civil rights struggle
of the 1960s.
The U. S."peculiar institution" vs. the tri-partite
social
form
In
considering this intuition, let us take note of one particular social and
political factor that has not received the attention it deserves, namely: the
dissonance between the tri-partite, essentially class, form historically taken
by the social structure in nations in Latin America, the Caribbean, and in Asia
and in parts of Africa, on the one hand, and the strictly "race" social
structure in the United States, that supersedes "class" distinctions, under the
"one-drop-of-blood" rule handed down from slavery times.(29)
In
the period 1971 to 1994, five countries accounted for almost 90 per cent of
recorded immigration to the United States from Latin America: Mexico 62%;
Dominican Republic, 10%; Cuba, 8%; El Salvador, 6%; and Guatemala, 3%.
According to official statistics, the "White/Caucasian" proportions of the
population of these respective countries are: Mexico, 9%, Dominican Republic 0%;
Cuba, 37%; El Salvador, 1%; and, Guatemala, 0%.(30)
Implicit
in these figures is the signal fact that, in each of these countries, the middle
class - the essential intermediate social control stratum - has historically
been composed of persons of one degree or another of non-European
ancestry.(31) Immigrants from these countries are not
accustomed to the bi-polar "white race" system historically prevalent in the
United States, which, on bi-polar "race" principles, blocks the path of social
mobility of non-Europeans in this country.
The Caribbean immigrants, 1900 to 1930: A cautionary
tale?
The
story of the immigrants from the Caribbean is suggestive of the potential social
impact of the present predominantly non-European immigration into the United
States. In the early decades of the twentieth century, immigrants from the
British West Indies were so shocked by the U. S. system of "race" that, as
sociologist Ira De A. Reid, himself such an immigrant, described it: "Many
Negro immigrants had to go into a mental reverse to accept such
stratification."(32) One out of eveery
four re-emigrated. Some of those who stayed sought to make some quiet
viable adjustment to the white-supremacist environment. But others - some
of whom came already radicalized, and some who were first radicalized by the
American experience - rejected the course of silent adjustment. Opening
his study of this contingent, Professor Winston James
states: "One of the most intriguing sociological and historical facts about American radicalism in the
twentieth century has been the prominence and often pre-eminence of
Caribbean migrants among its participants."(33)
Considering
the common characteristics of the two cases, it seems a reasonable conjecture
that the ruling class policy makers might be concerned that the present and
prospective preponderance of non-European immigration could foster an
anti-white-supremacist radicalization, similar to that of the Caribbean
immigrants of the early twentieth century, one of a much larger
scale.
The Status of Mexican
Americans
The predominant role played by Mexican-American leaders and
organizations in the unfolding of the events attendant upon the adoption of the
tri-partite categorization established by OMB Order 15, makes it appropriate and
necessary briefly to note the history of the social and political status of
Mexican Americans.(34)
The
Mexican Revolution that began in 1810(35) abolished
slavery and ushered in the ascendance of the mestizo, while retaining the
class/color social hierarchy inherited from the Spanish regime, wherein social
mobility was provided according to the principle that, "el dinero emblanquece
("money whitens.")
In
1831, the United States government sought unsuccessfully to induce Mexico, in
effect, to enforce the United States Fugitive Slave Law against
African-Americans escaping to Mexican territory.(36) Under the terms of the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo marking the end
of the Mexican War, the Mexican government was forced to surrender more than
half of the country - a territory comprising the present states of New Mexico
and California, and parts of Utah, Nevada, Arizona and Colorado, thus opening
the greater part of that territory to the expansion of the slave
system.(37)
But
the Mexicans remained on guard against slave-catching intentions of the
slaveholder-dominated United States government.(38) At
Guadalupe Hidalgo, therefore, the Mexican government insisted that Mexicans in
the annexed territories "at the proper time" were to be entitled "to the
enjoyment of all the rights of citizens of the United States, according to the
principles of the [U. S.] Constitution."(39)
Since
United States citizenship was at that time restricted to "whites,"(40) then, as
far as official statistics went, Mexican-Americans were to be, "like Europeans,
classified as part of the foreign stock for two generations and then not
distinguished as a separate grouping."(41) This
provision of the treaty would ever after be a reference point for
Mexican-American rights struggles; in the words
of political scientists de la Garza, Falcon, and
Garcia:
Cognizant that U. S, society has been organizes
around a
white-black dichotomy with white as the preferred
category,
Mexican
American leaders have historically campaigned to have
the
Mexican-origin population identified as white to avoid
discrimi-
nation.(42)
In
practice, however, Mexican-Americans were indeed to be distinguished from
the "Anglos" (European-Americans) for all social and civil purposes. As
Professor David Montejano writes, although Mexican-Americans were formally
"whites," "politically and socially, Negroes and Mexicans were considered
basically as different factors of the same racial problem."(43)
This was, and was regarded as, a "race" distinction, on
which there was established a system of segregation, whereby the laboring-class
whites were enlisted to keep down the Mexicans(44) and kept
themselves safely in the "white race" corral).(45) Just as the roots of oppression of African-Americans are to be traced to
plantation slavery, so the roots of the racial discrimination against
Mexican-Americans are to be found in the peonage of Mexican labor on Texas
ranches.
In
the late nineteenth century, Anglos might cite the legacy of the Alamo, in
claiming immunity for killing Mexicans as "enemies."(46) White rancheros regarded Mexicans as subhuman, lower than dogs or
worse.(47) On cattle drives to the railroad loading
points, there was a clear "racial" hierarchy where Mexicans and Anglos were
engaged together; the former were the workers, the latter, the bosses.(48)
It was these latter who were the original bearers of the
title "rangers." A visitor at the famous King Ranch found that it was a
common practice that Mexican cowhands were not allowed to eat with the "white"
cowhands, but were obliged to camp with the animals, and there to cook their
food.(49) Typically, on Texas ranches where both Mexican and "white" hands
were employed, the Mexican workers were paid one-third less than "any white
man."(50)
The
arrival of railroads in Texas, coincided with the rolling back of post-Civil War
Reconstruction and the influx of capital and of many prejudiced "whites" from
other parts of the United States.(51) The result was a
rapid growth of towns and cities, in which the pattern of racial discrimination
against the Mexican vaquero on the ranches was reproduced on this grander scale,
with the formation of "two societies," one Anglo, the other Mexican.(52)
In the early, "frontier days," Mexican landholders might be
regarded as "good citizens" under the concept that "el dinero
emblanquece."(53) Yet, Juan Seguin, a large
landowner who had served as Mayor of San Antonio and fought for Texas
independence from Mexico in 1836, was driven from the country by Anglo squatters
in 1842.(54) Later, they would be effectively eclipsed
economically, and lose their former social standing as
"whites."(55)
When sufficient European-Americans had arrived in southeastern
Texas, they formed their own exclusive "white" society. Sharp "race
distinctions" were established and "Mexican" was equated with "Negro" for
segregation purposes(56).Like African-Americans, Mexicans were to be regarded as
incapable of assimilating in the North American "culture," or in civic life in
the way that Italians and Germans were able to do.(57)
Mexicans were segregated in movie houses, pharmacies, restaurants, shops, banks
and schools. At Anglo cafes, Mexicans could not sit down, but were
required to take out their purchases. School segregation was instituted,
reflecting the established general pattern of racial discrimination. Not
only were Mexicans forced into segregated inferior schools, few of them were
admitted to high schools.(58) A white supremacist
lexicon of degrading terms for Mexican, justified the restriction of Mexicans to
agricultural labor.(59) The general tendency was to
use ethnic or national prejudice as a basis for separation and control, says
Montejano, who likens the establishment of the Texas system of racial
segregation of Mexican Americans to that which occurred "the segregationist
South against the Negroes during the same period."(60)
The
contrast of the history of formal categorization of Mexican Americans as
"whites" and their actual subjugation under white supremacist oppression,
appears to have cast the mold for the development of
the Mexican American struggle for protection under the
civil rights laws of the 1960s.
Census Politics - the Good, the Bad, and the
Ugly
As early as the 1930s, and more particularly after the
United States entry into World-War II, the leaders of the middle-class
organization, the League of United Latin Americans (LULAC), had appealed for
acceptance by the "white", Anglo, society by stressing the "patriotism" of
Mexican-Americans. They reminded the Anglos of the role of the Mexicans
who at the decisive 1836 Battle of San Jacinto, fought as allies of the Anglos
in winning independence from Mexico. They pressed their appeal against the
discriminatory practices and spirit of Anglos by stressing the valiant service
of Mexican-American soldiers. They struck a defensive mode in the face of
disparaging references to Mexican Americans made by Anglos against
Mexican-Americans as not being hygienic."(61) They
based their claims on their historical status as United States "white" citizens
under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and United States censuses. Rather
than demanding racial equality, as African-Americans have done historically,
they claimed recognition as "whites"; rather than challenging "white" identity,
they sought inclusion in it.
The African-American civil rights struggles of the
mid-1950s and the 1960's not only made way for a general exaltation of the
social philosophy of equalitarianism; it brought the beginning of
reconsideration of the bedrock concept of "white" identity and of the camouflage
of "ethnic politics" used to express that identity.
The Good
In the context of the experiences of
Mexican American as members of the armed forces and their expanded industrial
employment during World War II, and the effects of a marked increase in the
urbanization of the Mexican American population, the upsurge of the Black-led
civil rights movement was able to exert a powerful transforming effect on the
campaigns of Mexican-Americans against racial discrimination. According to
one commentator much-cited in the census debates, "Leaders of major
Mexican-American voluntary associations were becoming more assertive in the late
1960s, following the successes of the black civil rights
movement."(62)
Most important of all, was the mass participation of farm
workers, urban proletarians, and students, who adopted militant tactics and mass
action methods that had previously been practiced by the African-American civil
rights movement. It was not until "...the Negroes of the South and the
Mexican Americans in the Southwest mobilized and mounted an attack from below in
the 1960s," writes Professor Montejano, that the breaking down of Jim Crow was
completed.(63) The movement spread throughout the
Southwest and produced an intensified
focus on electoral politics.(64)
The
passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and of the Voting Rights Act of 1965,
were crowning achievements of the African-American civil rights crusade.
The former was based on the Fourteenth Amendment provision for "equal protection
of the laws." The 1965 Act, taking language from the fifteenth amendment,
outlawed discrimination in elections against persons "on account of race or
color." Both of these laws provided for the establishment of
administrative and legal criteria defining and determining practices of illegal
discrimination.
Determined not to be excluded from the civil rights gains won by
African-Americans, Mexican-American leaders in academia, other professionals,
and political leaders mobilized to secure the Mexican-Americans a place as one
of the "protected groups" for purposes of civil rights legislation.(65)A Census
Bureau report to Congress in 1974 listed thirty-four "Spanish Organizations with
whom its staff had met between June 1972 and May 1974 "to discuss program on
statistics on persons of Spanish ancestry in the United States."(66)
The 150-year struggle of Mexican Americans for equal rights
had broken through to become a national concern of the United States official
society.
The Bad - "Ethnic" versus
"Race"
Controversies arose, however, about how the term "protected group" could be made
to apply to Mexican-Americans and Puerto Ricans. Were they covered by the
protection against discrimination on account of "race or color"? The
United States Department of Justice took note of the fact that the Census Bureau
classed Mexicans and Puerto Ricans as "white," but said that "the meaning of
'race or color' for the purposes of the 15th Amendment is not necessarily the
same as the meaning for census purposes...." Nevertheless, on the basis of
legislative history and a host of judicial precedents, the Justice Department
concluded that, "[I]t is fully consistent with the spirit of the [Voting Rights]
Act as amended to treat Mexican-Americans and Puerto Ricans as racial
groups."(67)
However,
this decision by the Justice Department for inclusion of Mexican Americans and
Puerto Ricans in the "protected group" was rejected by the those the
Mexican American leaders most actively engaged in determining the terms of
definition of Mexican Americans for civil rights law
purposes. In the course of a protracted struggle with the Census
Bureau, they demanded that Mexican-Americans "not be categorized as a race," but
as "an ethnic group." They further insisted that the census form provide
"a separate Hispanic self-identification item, not combined with other ethnic
groups."(68) The option for "ethnic group" would
serve to maintain civil rights protection for all Mexican-Americans, including
those who were "white." And, the insistence on being the only
"ethnic" group, was needed to distinguish Mexican-Americans from
European-Americans, who, as "whites," were not classed among the "protected
groups" designated in the civil rights laws.
The need for Mexican-Americans to be
distinguished from "white" ethnics was obvious. But what was the need
to be distinguished in this way from African-Americans and others identified as
"races," who, if it came to that, could with fully as much "phenotypic"
justification be categorized as "ethnic" groups? If avoidance of the
blood encrusted category of "race" is good for Mexican-Americans, why would it
not be good for all? Incidentally, it would seem to present the
inspiring effect of eliminating "white" identity from the census, and from use
by the many agencies of information that follow its lead. Just as a way
was found, indeed by a Congressional finding to include Hispanics, along with
the still "racially" categorized American Indian, Asian American, [and] Native
Alaskan,(69) in the protected groups category by designating
them a "language minority," so could a Congressional finding be formulated that
would maintain the protection of African-Americans if classed as an ethnic
group, and preserve their claims to benefits presently available to them in the
"race" category. Does not the institution of this "ethnic" versus
"race" distinction tend to draw a politically divisive line through the
ranks of the "people of color," rather than contributing to the common struggle
against white supremacism?
The Ugly - Ethnic Politics, an Old "White" American
Custom
The
allocation of benefits of programs established under these Acts, and invocations
of the law with regard to , Congressional districts, school ditricts, etc. were
to be dependent upon the proportions of an aggrieved population in a given
jurisdiction. As a result, the Census Bureau was thrust into a key role in
the administration of the civil rights laws.
That circumstance motivated all groups
with claims under these laws to seek assurances that they be by fully counted,
and protected against the continuation of the substantial undercount of recent
censuses. This situation "convinced Mexican-American leaders of the
necessity for better statistics."(70) But, if they
were not to be qualified for civil rights protection under the "race or color"
rubric, a common "ethnic" identity was needed whereby Mexican Americans would
qualify for "protection" under the civil rights laws.
Rectification began with the introduction
of House Joint Resolution 406 by Representative Roybal on March 5, 1973, aimed
at securing more adequate economic and social statistics for Spanish-speaking
Americans, "a large proportion of whom suffer from racial, social, economic, and
political discrimination...."(71) Incidentally, that
is the last time that the term "racial" occurs in the official record of the
presentation of the case for the "Hispanic" identity. This fact served to
distinguish Roybal from Herman Badillo, Puerto Rican-born member of Congress
from New York, who scrupulously avoided "racial" in his statement of support of
the Roybal resolution.(72') Badillo was explicit a year
later in strongly opposing the classification of Mexican-Americans as a "race,"
citing the historical practice (noting the 1930 exception) of the Census Bureau
of classing Mexican-Americans as "white."(73) ¯
Several years of intense discussion, over terms of
identification, such as "Spanish culture," "Spanish heritage," and Spanish
surname, finally ended with "Spanish origin,"(74) which then was translated for the census and other official statistics as
"Hispanic,"(75) a term designed to bring the maximum
number of people into the category.(76) It was indeed
a "social construct" as Candace Nelson and Marta Tienda found in their critical
evaluation of "the coherence of 'Hispanicity' as an ethnic
category..."(77) "Hispanic" emerged a single "ethnic" category, comprising
Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, South or Central Americans, and unspecified
others, that would almost triple from 10.0 million in 1970 to 29.7 million in
1997.(78)
Some
writers, have appeared to view this very growth in terms of social
priority. "It is only a matter of time," said one commentary, "before
Hispanics assume a dominant position among American
minorities."(79) "America...is an increasingly
Hispanic nation...", wrote another.(80) All the
while, the government and the media were drilling into the public consciousness
the projected supersedence of the Hispanic over the Black population, by 2005
becoming the "largest minority."
Stand
back and think for a moment. What is meant by "a minority." It is
obviously not to be understood as a simple numerical assessment. Just to
mention one instance, it is often observed that in New York City "the majority
is minority." More than forty years ago. social anthropologists
Charles Wagley persented a study of Minorities in the Americas.
Emphasizing that "neither term, minority or majority, in
this technical sense, refers to a numerical minority ot majority," they defined
"minority" in the following classic formulation:
[A] minority is a social group whose members are
subject to disabilities in the form of prejudice, discrimination, segregation,
or persecution (or a combination of these) at the hands of another kind of
social group....called a majority.(81)
"Who,
then, could want to be classed as a "minority," even the largest one, even the
first in line? It's like aspiring to be the largest family to miss the
train. Is it worth it to be certified as a "minority" whose "handicap on
the socio-economic scale" is less than the handicap of another
"minority"?(82) Must that status be accepted simply to
receive the "protected group" benefits earned by the equal rights struggles of
African-Americans, Mexican Americans, and Puerto Ricans?
Hispanics of "higher socioeconomic status," write Tienda and Ortiz, are those
with "ambivalent social identity [which] derives from their desire to be
recognized by the majority group (non-Hispanics) based on their socioeconomic
credentials."(83) Are there some Mexican American of higher class and
social rank who harbor a tendency such as that expressed by LULAC leaders of the
1930s and 1940s, the desire for "inclusion" in the "white
race?"(84) It is not for European-Americans, nurtured on white-skin
privileges, to pronounce judgments on such possible sentiment among some
Mexican-Americans; after all, such Mexican Americans would only be aspiring to
do what Anglo-Americans, Irish, Jews, Italians and other ethnic groups have
claimed as their unimpeachable right. Judgments on that score are the
exclusive right of the Mexican-American people alone.
Objectively considered, however, such a
perspective would seem to be problematic. The effectiveness of any
such a bid for "promotion" to the "white race," could succeed only if it derived
from and were based on the strength of the movements representing the great
majority of the Mexican-Americans whom the civil rights laws propose to protect
against discrimination "on account of their race or color." Only time can
tell what the prospect may be for a "white" middle and professional class
maintaining hegemony over a population that disdains "white"
identity.
Such a "white" Mexican-American middle and professional class, despite its
"socioeconomic credentials," would face a paradox. It could maintain that
politically indispensable mass base only at the cost of abandoning the goal of
"inclusion" in the "white race," and, instead, accepting "minorityhood"
for themselves as well as for Mexican Americans in general. For, the very
existence of the white race is dependent precisely on discrimination against
"person on account of their race or color," including not only
African-Americans, but the majority of Puerto Ricans, Chicanos, and other
Latinos. Of course, some might individually opt for "passing," but, in
doing so, they would forfeit their roles as leaders of their people and
their rich cultural lives.
On the other hand, what believer in equal rights could
wish to be in a"majority" like the one, for example,
predicted by David Lind, Washington editor of Harper's
Magazine?:
"There is not going to be a non-white majority in the 21st century.
Rather there is going to be a mostly white mixed-race
majority...[W]hat
seems
to be emerging in the United States is a new dichotomy between
blacks and nonblacks. Increasingly, whites, Asians and Hispanics
are
creating a broad community from which black Americans may be
excluded."(85)
Such a
perspective violates the pervasive sense of a common interest in fighting the
white supremacist discrimination faced by Latinos and Blacks - in education, in
the legal system, in treatment by police, in "racial profiling," and in other
ways. It is in conflict with the tradition of the "attack from below," by
African Americans and Mexican Americans that ended Jim Crow in the
1960s.(86) It is contradicted by the sense of "what it
is like to be a Mexican American or Black Texan seeking to participate in the
electoral process," as recalled by Mexican American leader Lionel Castillo in
Congressional testimony in 1974.(87) The difference is
seen in the lack of regard that Mexican Americans show for "white" identity in
their responses to census categorization, as described in 1993 by Sonia Perez,
Director of Research for the National Council of La Raza, and Steven Carbo of
the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund. "Many Hispanics have difficulty
classifying themselves by race," said Perez, "...they self-identify principally
by subgroup...and descent from multiracial origins."(88) Nearly half of
Latino respondents in a U. S. Census Bureau survey, noted Carbo, "did not
respond to the race question as anticipated by the Census Bureau. Rather
than identifying themselves racially as White, Black, Asian or Native
American/Alaskan, nearly half the Latinos surveyed identified themselves as
being of an 'other' race."(89). That aversion to the "white"
identity is projected by leaders of Latino
organizations who "say the important point is that Hispanic and black Americans
together...both suffer from greater poverty, discrimination lack of education
and crime than whites," and who believe, as Sonia Perez does: "We should care
about how both groups [African Americans and Mexican Americans] are doing, and
not just whether one is doing better than the other or growing faster than the
other."(90)
The
issue posed - between those who seek inclusion in the "white race," or to be
first among "minorities," on the one hand, and those who understand the need
make common cause with all those fighting to end white supremacy, on the other;
between the "unifying and divisive elements inherent in the notion of
'Hispanicity,'" to borrow a phrase from Nelson and Tienda(91) - that issue is
not the interest of Latinos alone. but of all who wish to add strength to
the struggle against racial discrimination.
It is a concern of which the questions
raised about OMB Order 15 and the 2000 Census relating to "race" and
"ethnicity," are only a part, though not an inconsiderable one. After 210
years of the racial segregation of census categories, it would be a meaningful
earnest of that concern if we resolved to at least end the invidious and
divisive distinction between "race" and "ethniciity" in the United States
census.
###
Notes
FN1 The census of 1790 listed only "free white
persons" (including those "bound to Service for a Term of years"), "all other
free persons" (meaning the 59,150 free Negroes), and the 694,280 "slaves."
"Indians not taxed" were to be excluded from the census. (A Century of
Population Growth, from the First Census of the United States to the Twelfth,
1790-1900, Department of Commerce and Labor Bureau of the Census
[Washington,D. C., 1909], pp. 43, 47. See also, United States
Constitution, Article I, Section 2, subsection 3.) See also the schedule
for the "Census of 1790," in Carroll D. Wright, History and Growth of the
United States Census (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1900), p.
132.
FN2. Representative Thomas Petri of Wisconsin,
noting that, "it is a kind of compromise to say Hispanic origin," asked,
"....[I]s there not some way of broadening it [the range of "racial/ethnic"
categories] to cover people who don't happen to be able to put Hispanic down [in
filling out census forms]...[?]" (Hearings before the Subcommittee on
Census, Statistics and Postal Personnel of the Committee on Post Office and
Civil Service, House of Representatives, 103rd Congress, 1 Sess., p. 276. [3
November 1993.])
FN3. Charles Hirschman, agrees with S. Steinberg's
assessment of the post-Roots spike of interest in "white ethnic" roots, as "an
effort of the fairly established populations to resist integration and
participation with the currently disadvantaged minorities, much in the way that
the WASP establishment rejected the melting pot goals of new immigrants earlier
in the century." (Charles Hirschman, "America's Melting Pot Reconsidered,"
Annual Review of Sociology, vol. 9 (1983), p. 415. His reference if
to S. Steinberg, The Ethnic Myth: Race, Ethnicity and Class in America
(Boston, 1981).
FN4 Challenges of Measuring an Ethnic World:
Science, Politics and Reality_, Proceedings of the Joint Canada-United States
Conference on the Measurement of Ethnicity, Ottawa, Canada, April 1-3, 1992.
(U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.. 1993). p. 3. The
printed Proceedings took up 576 pages. N.B. In subsequent references to
this work, the title will be abbreviated, Challenges...
FN5. Nampeo R. McKenney, Assistant Division Chief,
Population Division, Bureau of the Census, and Arthur R. Cresce, (Demography)
Year 2000 Research and Development staff, Bureau of the Census, Challenges,
p.43
FN6. Challenges..., p. 143. Hirschman is
identified as a member of the Department of Sociology, University of
Washington.
FN7. Charles Hirschman, "How to Measure Ethnicity:
An Immodest Proposal," in Challenges..., pp. 547-557;
548.
Ira S. Lowry's offer of perhaps the most
comprehensive, objective, and specific definition of ethnicity seems fatally
amorphous. "Ethnicity", he said, "...is the social identity which derives
from belonging to a group whose members share a common race, religion,
language or national origin." (Ira S. Lowry, "The Science and Politics of Ethnic
Enumeration," a paper presented at the annual meeting of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science in San Francisco, California, January
3-8, 1980, cited in Challenges... ,., p.100."
If, however, the matter
is approached in terms of inter-group, rather than intra-group, relationships,
order is brought to the search for a meaningful, easily understood, and caeforic
definition of "ethnicity." See the reference to Wagley and Harris at Note 81,
above. [[[SEE: 1) Wsevolod ISAJIW, "Definitions
of Ethnicity," Ethnicity, 1:111-124. 2) Reynolds Farley "The New
Census Question about Ancestry: What Did It Tell
Us?," Demography, 8(3) (1991):411-429.]]]
FN8. Spotlight on Heterogeneity: The Federal
Standards for Racial and Ethnic Classification, National Research Council of
the National Academy of Sciences, Committee on National Statistics (Washington,
D. C., 1996), p, 1.
FN9. Office of Management and Budget Revisions to the
Standards for the Classification of Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity,
printed in Federal Register, October 30, 1997, pp. 58782-58790; p.
58792. This revision, followed a twenty-year period of discussion of OMB
Directive 15 of April 1977, involving not only Congress and administrative
agencies. but wide-ranging participation by academics and journals in the fields
of demography, sociology, statistics, and by auxiliary public-interest agencies
such as the National Academy of Sciences.
FN10. "Race and ethnicity may be thought of in
terms of social and cultural characteristics..." (Ibid., p.
58782.)¯
FN11. Ibid., p. 58782.
FN12. Ibid., p. 58789.
FN13. U. S. Department of Labobr, Bureaus of Labor
Statistics Monthly Labor Review, February 1999, p. 12, Table
15, "Employment status of the civilian noninstitutional population 16 years and
older, by sex, race, and Hispanic origin, quarterly averages, seasonally
adjusted."
FN14. See Table 2 in Ann Morning,
"Counting the Color Line: Socioeconomic Status of Multiracial Americans," paper
delivered at the annual meeting of the Social Science History Association, Fort
Worth, Texas, November, 1999. Correspondence should be
addressed to the Office of Population Research, Princeton, 21 Prospect Avenue,
NJ 08544.
FN15. As proposed in the Congressional testimony of the
Director of Research of the National Urban League, Billy J. Tidwell, July 29,
1993. (Review of Federal Measurements of Race and Ethnicity: Hearings before
the Subcommittee on Post Office and Civil Service, House of
Representatives_, [April-November, 1993], 103 Congress, 1st sess.
[Washington, D. C., 1994], p. 234.)
FN16. Controversies over official statistics are,
"only a manifest sign of the political choices that otherwise lie latent and
obscure in the cognitive organization of statistics." (Paul Starr,
Princeton University, "The Sociology of Official Statistics," in William Alonso
and Paul Starr, eds., The Politics of Numbers [New York, 1987], pp.
40-41.)
FN17. Nampeo R. McKenney and Arthur Cresce, of the
United States Bureau of the Census. (Challenges..._, pp. 180,
181.)
The same point was made by other conference
speakers. "The issues we are talking about are political to the core,"
said Audrey Koyabashi, Department of Geography, Mcgill University, Montreal:
".... The words we use to reduce social groups to statistical categories are
political inventions." (Ibid., p. 128-29.) Lawrence Bobo,
Department of Sociology, University of California at Los Angeles: "Everything is
political....We know that politics and the census get connected in potentially
explosive ways. The census is tied to too many important resources for
that not to be the case." (Ibid., pp. 157-58.) Sociologist Charles
Hirschman, of the University of Washington Sociology Department generalized even
more broadly, asserting that throughout the Americas, "National systems of
ethnic divisions and classification schemes seem more related to political
history than to ancestry or cultural divisions." Charles Hirschman.
(Ibid., p.549.)
FN18. "The White House [in 1968] instructed the
Secretary of Commerce to add a Hispanic self-identifier to the census
questionnaire, and this order was relayed to the Director of the Census
Bureau." (Harvey M. Chjoldin, University of Illinois sociologist,
"Statistics and Politics: The 'Hispanic issue' in the 1980 Census,"
Demography, 23:403-18 [August 1986], p. 407.)
"The contrived category of 'Hispanic'
presents an appealingly simple view of the ethnic spectrum: all who speak
any version of Spanish (though recognizably distinct for each of the three main
groups [Mexican-Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Cuban-Americans - TWA], or whose
forebears came from no matter which Spanish-speaking country, are lumped
together irrespective of cultural or racial differences..." (William Petersen,
"Politics and the Measurement of Ethnicity," in William Alonso and Paul Starr,
eds., The Politics of Numbers [New York, 1987], pp.
231-32.)
FN19. World Almanac and Book of Facts, 1997 [New
York, 1997], pp. 739, 742-47, 752-61, 772, 804, 833.)
FN20. "To gloss over the living nature of culture,"
writes Sociologist Martha Gimenez, of Colorado University (Boulder, Colorado
80309), "to posit instead some objective 'Hispanicity' common to everyone
remotely connected to Spain or born in a Spanish-speaking country, while
glossing over the historical cultural differences that divide this population,
is a state-imposed hegemonic project that culturalizes economic exploitation and
political oppression." (See Martha Gimenez, "Latinos/Hispanics...What Next: Some
Reflections on the Politics of Identity in the U. S.," Cultural Logic,
Spring 1998, at http://eserver.org/projects/clogic/i-2/gimenez.html.)
"While common ancestral ties to Spain indicate an
underlying cultural affinity, the diversity among the 20 or so Hispanic national
origin groups which span countries from three continents and the Caribbean
challenges the conception of Hispanic as a single ethnic groups. History
accounts for the persistence of specific national identities, but the emergence
of generic labels usually reflects statistical convenience." (Marta Tienda
and Wilma Ortiz, "'Hispanicity' and the 1980 Census," Social Science Quarterly,
67(1):3-20 [March 1986], p.3.)
FN21. See Krauze, Biography of Power:
A History of Modern Mexico, 1819-1996 (New York, 1997}
chapters "The Mestizo Family" and "The Triumph of the Mestizo."¯
FN22. Spotlight on Heterogeneity: The Federal
Standards for Racial and Ethnic Classification, p. 2. "The most
notable change in the past 30 years has been the dramatic increase in the number
of immigrants from the countries of Asia an Latin America."
FN23. Almanac, 1996-19973. Statistical
Yearbook of the United States Immigration and Naturalization
Service, (Cited in American Almanac, 1996-1997, p. 11 [Table
No. 8].) Percentages rounded.
FN24. Choldin, "Statistics and Politics: The
'Hispanic issue' in the 1980 Census," p. 404.¯
FN25. "Immigration and Race: Recent Trends in
Immigration to the United States," in Immigration and Ethnicity: The
Integration of America's Newest Arrivals, Barry Edmonston and Jeffrey
Passel, eds., (Washington, D. C.: The Urban Institute Press, 1994), p.
57.¯
FN26. Canada, a country whose volume and national
diversity of immigration has matched that of the United States, has not followed
that course. Indeed, as that government's census officials have said, in Canada
since 1945, "race has remained a four-letter word." (Pamela White, Statistics
Canada, and John Samuel, Director, Canada Employment and Immigration Advisory
Council, in Challenges..., pp. 46, 80, respectively.)
FN27. A very informative study in this regard is Elmer
Clarence Sandmeyer, The Anti-Chinese Movement in California, Illinois
University Studies in Social Science, vol. xxiv, no. 3 (Urbana,
1939).
FN28. With regard to the West Indian
immigration, see Winston James, Holding Aloft the Banner of
Ethiopia: Caribbean Radicalism in Early Twentieth-Century America (New York,
1998), pp.12, 355).¯
FN29. In colonial Hispanic America it was possible
for a person to become "white" by purchasing a royal certificate of
"whiteness." (Charles Edward Chapman, Colonial Hispanic
Americ: A History [New York, 1933], p. 118.
Anthropologist Marvin Harris, in his study of variations in
"racial" patterns in the Americas, noted that, in Brazil, it is said that "money
whitens," so that one could move from one racial category to another by
prospering financially. (Marvin Harris, Patterns of Race in the
Americas [New York, 1954], p. 118.
Instructions for enumerators who conducted the 1950 census of Guatemala
required that: "In deciding whether a person is Indian or Ladino, the enumerator
must use as a base the social esteem in which the person is held in the place
being enumerated." (Methods and Materials of Demography _, (revised
fourth printing) by Henry S. Shyrock, Jacob Siegel, and Associates,
[Washington, D. C., June, 1980], p. 255. The term "Ladino" means the same
as "mestizo," and it is generally applied to persons of Indio-Hispanic
descent.
"In Puerto Rico," writes sociologist Clara
Rodriguez, "racial identification is subordinate to cultural identification....A
'black' or a 'negro' becomes 'white' by achieving economic status or one's
friendship. (Clara Rodriguez, "Puerto Ricans: Between Black and White," New
York Affairs, Volume 1 Number 4, Spring, 1974 pp. 92-101; pp.94,
95.
FN30. An analysis of the "ethnic" composition of
the seventeen Spanish-speaking countries of Latin America (not including Puerto
Rico) indicates that only three - Argentina, Uruguay, and Costa Rica, with only
a combined nine per cent of the total population Latin America - had
"Caucasian/white" ethnic majorities. (World Almanac and Book of Facts,
1997 [New York, 1997], pp. 739, 742-47, 752-61, 772, 804, 833.)
FN31 See Invention of the White Race, vol
2, chapters 3 and 12.
FN32. Ira De A. Reid, The Negro Immigrant: His
Background, Characteristics and Adjustment (New York, 1939), pp. 216, 226.
See also Winston James, Holding Aloft the Banner of Ethiopia: Caribbean
Radicalism in Early Twentieth-Century America (New York, 1998), pp. 82-88,
and 362-63 (Tables 2.1 and 2.2) relating to relatively high proportion of
professionals and skilled workers among Caribbean immigrants. James says
that Reid's book "stands unrivalled as an analysis of the Caribbean experience
in the United States during the first four decades of the century." (p.
2.)
A similar painful bafflement is
experienced by "interracial" couples whose children are expected to choose one
parent's lineage over the other's in classifying themselves as to "race." (See,
for example, the testimonies of Susan Graham, Executive director of Project
Race, and her 8-year old son, Ryan Graham; and of Carlos Fernandez, President of
the Association of MultuEthnic Americans,in Review of Federal
Measurements of Race and Ethnicity: Hearings before the Subcommittee on Post
Office and Civil Service, House of Representatives, [April-October, 1993], 103
Congress, 1st sess., pp. 105-134.) However, the request of "mixed
race" families for the institution of a "multi-ethnic" category for themselves
was explicitly rejected in the 1997 revised OMB order 15.
FN33. Winston James, Holding Aloft the Banner of
Ethiopia: Caribbean Radicalism in Early Twentieth-Century America (New York,
1998), p. 1. That contingent merged with and further shaped the historical
Black American struggle, radicalizing it as internationalists, Socialists,
Communists and Garveyites. While it is true that European immigrants
furnished a large proportion of the leaders of the Socialist, Communist and
labor movements, the great significant difference of the two phenomena was that
whereas European-American radicalism and trade unionism was fundamentally
accommodationist with regard to white supremacist, the Caribbean-American
radicalism - socialism, communism, Garveyism - was predicated on a rejection of
and struggle against white supremacist. In addition to James's work,
Jeffrey B. Perry's Hubert Henry Harrison, Father of Harlem Radicalism
(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Press, forthcoming.) will be found especially
informative on this subject.
FN34 Two distinct national groups are part of the
United States population due to the acquisition of former Spanish colonies
- Mexican-Americans and Puerto Ricans, of whom it is aptly said, "the border
crossed them." Due to the limits of space for this presentation, to the
fact that it has been the leaders and organizations of the Mexican-Americans who
figured most prominently in the discussions regarding the establishment of
the census category, and that the Puerto Rican case is like the
Mexican-American case as far as the "race" categorization is concerned, I have
felt justified in relegating to an Appendix my comments on the status of Puerto
Ricans.
FN35. Enrique Krauze, Mexico: Biography of
Power:, p. 98. See also pp. 111, for the disproportionate
participation of persons of the "®MDUL¯castas®MDNM¯," Africans and Indo-Africans
in the revolutionary struggle.
FN36. "Due to "difficulties [that] occurred," that
proposed provision was deleted from the treaty before it was signed in December
of that same year. ("Treaty of Amity, Commerce, and Navigation," in
Treaties and Other International Agreements of the United States of America,
1776-1949, Charles Bevans, comp., 9 vols., [Washington, D. C., 1972], 9:775,
779-80, 779, n. 11.)
FN38. Bevans, comp., pp. 791-806. The annexed
area totalled 1.2 million square miles. Encyclopedia of American
History, Richard B. Morris [New York, 1953],
p.207.)¯
FN38. Five years after the devastating loss of
Mexican territory in the Mexican War, the eminent Mexican historian and
political figure, Lucas Alam n, warned of the likelihood that the United
States would make further encroachments, in order to bring in slaves, and
"subject Indians and Castas [Afro-Indians] to more or less rigorous
servitude." (Lucas Alaman, Historia de Mexico: Desde los primeros
movimentos que preparatron su independencia en el a¤a de 1808 hasta la ‚poca
presente, 5 vols, (Mexico City, 1985, 5:55. Cited by Krauze,
®MDUL¯Mexico, Biography of Power®MDNM¯, p. 148.)¯
FN3. Treaties and Other International Agreements of
the United States of America, 1776-1949, 9:797.
FN40. See Invention of the White Race, 1:185
and 295, n. 49.
FN41. William Petersen, "Politics and the
Measurement of Ethnicity," in William Alonso and Paul Starr, eds., The
Politics of Numbers (New York, 1987), p. 223. The 1930 Census was an
exception. That census classified Mexican-Americans as a not-white "race."
Mexican-American leaders, with the support of the Mexican government,
objected. Their protests won a guarantee that, except for Mexican Indians
and Negroes, Mexican-Americans were not again to be categorized as "non-white"
for census purposes. Accordingly, this aberration was eliminated in
subsequent censuses, including revised tables relating to 1930. See
16th Census of the United States, 1940, vol. II, Explanatory Note, pp,
3-4. See also, Choldin, "The Hispanic Issue," p. 408.
FN42. Rodolfo O. de la Garza, Angelo Falcon, F.
Chris Garcia, and John Garcia, "Mexican Immigrants, Mexican Americans, and
American Political Culture," in Immigration and Ethnicity, Edmonston and
Passel, eds., p. 240. They cite San Miguel Guadalupe Jr., Let All of
Them Take Heed: Mexican Americans and the Campaign for Educational Equality in
Texas, 1910-1981 (University of Texas, 1987)
"In Texas," writes
Choldin, "'Mexican' was traditionally a term of opprobrium, labeling a
lower-class, discriminated against group, almost a caste. Therefore, a
person had in incentive to want to be called something else. Upwardly mobile
Mexican Americans would attempt to disassociate themselves from the ethnic
grouping by identifying themselves as Spanish...[T]he statistics categorized
births and deaths as Anglo, Spanish, and Mexican. (Choldin, "The Hispanic
Issue," p. 412.)
FN43. David Montejano, Anglos y mexicanos en la
formaci¢n de Texas, 1836-1986 (Mexico, D. F., 1991), p. 320.
FN44. Montejano, Anglos y
mexicanos ,pp. 105, 271.
FN45. As happened with the Populist cause in the
1880s when the Texas Farmers Alliance denied membership to African-Americans,
and joined the Louisiana Farmers Union, in identifying itself as "a strictly
"white man's business association." (John D. Hicks, The Populist
Revolt: A History of the Farmers' Alliance and the People's Party [Lincoln,
Nebraska, 1931], pp. 108, 110.)
FN46. Montejano, p. 105, citing: William Hale,
Twenty-four Years as Cowboy and Ranchman in Southern Texas and Old Mexico
(Norman, 1959), p. 135; John H. Culley, Cattle, Horses and Men
(Los Angeles, 1940),p. 103; J. Frank Dobie, Vaquero of the Brush
Country, (Dallas, 1929), pp. 54-56. Jovita Gonz lez, "Social Life
in Cameron, Starr, and Zapata Counties (Master's Thesis, University of Texas,
1930)," p. 11; Marvin J. Hunter, The Trail Drivers of Texas,
2:938-939.
FN47. Montejano, p. 105, citing: Mary J.
Jaques, Texas Ranch Life (London, 1894), pp. 361-62.
FN48. Montejano, p. 106, citing: Hunter, Trail
Drivers, 1:187. J. Frank Dobie, "Ranch Mexicans," Survey, May
1, 1931, pp. 167-70; p. 168.
FN49. Montejano, p. 104, citing: Jaques, Texas
Ranch Life, pp. 361-362.
FN50. Montejano, p. 115, citing: B. Youngblood y A.
B. Cox, An Economic Study of a Typical Ranching Area on the Edwards Plateau
of Texas_, pp. 308-312; A. Ray Stephens, The Taft Ranch, p. 130;
Hunter, ¯Trail Drivers_, 2:853-854; Dobie, "The Mexican Vaquero of the Texas
Border," Political Science Quarterly, 3(1) (June
1927), p. 23.
FN51. Montejano, p. 275-76, citing: Olive
Estbrooke Quinn, "The Transmission of Racial Attitudes among White Southerners,
in Race: Individual and Collective Behavior, Edgar T. Thompson and
Everett C. Hughes, eds., p. 452.
FN52. Montejano, Anglos y mexicanos..., p.
120.¯
F53. Montajeno, Anglos y
mexicanos...,p.107.
FN54. Juan Gonzalez, Harvest of
Empire (New York, 2000) p. ____.
FN55. Montejano, Anglos y mexicanos..., p.
117.¯
FN56. Montejano, Anglo y mexicanos..._, pp.
116-17, citing, Davis, West from a Car-Window, p. 27.
FN57. Montejano, p. 206, 271-72, citing: Eggleston,
"Birthplaces"; Taylor Collection, number 20-530; Taylor, "Mexican Labor,"
pp.438-439.¯
FN58. Montejano, p. 208, citing: P. S. Taylor,
"Mexican Labor," p. 397. Alfondo Pales, En defensa de mi raza, p.
34, 38-39. Taylor Collection, nos. 164-335, 166-337. Bass, "Kleberg
County, p. 179. Rubel, Across the Tracks, p.3. Stephens,
¯Taft Ranch¯, pp. 117, 178, 183, 185.
FN59. Montejano, pp.
277-78.
FN60. Montejano, Anglos y mexicanos...,.
105, 276.
FN61. Arnaldo DeLeon, Ethnicity in the Sunbelt:
A History of Mexican Americans in Houston, exican American Studies Monograph
Series No. 7, Mexican American Studies Program, University of Houston (Houston,
1989), pp. 164-65. Montejano, Anglos y mexicanos...., pp.
283-85.
FN62. Harvey M. Choldin, "Statistics and Politics:
The 'Hispanic Issue' in the 1980 Census," Demography, :403-418 (August
1986), 406.
FN63. Montejano, ¯Anglos y mexicanos_, p.
320-21.
FN64. Montejano, Anglos y Mexicanos,,,
pp. 356-59.
FN65. In 1973, the "Mexican American Population
Commission of California," was formed to pursue that interest. (Choldin, "The
Hispanic Issue,", p. 408.)
FN66. "Economic and Social Statistics for
Spanish-speaking Americans: Hearings before the Subcommittee on Census and
Statistics of the Committee on Post Office and Civil Service, House of
Representatives, 93d Congress, 2nd sess. (May 24, 1974), on House Joint
Resolution 406, p. 5.
FN67. Justice Department "memorandum on the meaning of
'race and color' as those terms are used in the 15th Amendment and in the Voting
Rights Act of 1965...," Hearings of the U. S. Senate Subcommittee on
Constitutional Rights of the Committee on the Judiciary, April 8 - May 1, 1975;,
p. 698-701 (April 20 1975). Readers willing to search it out and read the
entire memorandum, will find their interest richly rewarded with detailed
information, including numerous citations to case law.
FN68. Choldin, "The Hispanic Issue in the 1980
Census," pp. 408, 414.¯
FN69. As noted in United States Statutes at
Large...enacted during the first session of the Ninety-Fourth Congress
[1975] (Washington, D. C., 1976), Volume 89, Statute 400, Title II, Section
203.¯
FN70. Choldin, "The Hispanic Issue," p.
406.
FN71. House Joint Resolution 406, 93d Congress, 1st
session. Printed in Hearings of the Committee on Post Office and Civil
Service, Subcommittee on Census and Statistics, Tuesday May 28, 1974, pp.
iii-iv..
Roybal, a Mexican
American. represented the 25th Congressional district of California from 1962
until his resignation in 1992. "Roybal was never a radical;" writes
Rodolfo F. Acu¤a, "but his strong sense of justice was ahead of his
times." (Rodolfo F.Acu¤a, Anything But Mexican: Chicanos in
Conemporaryn Los Angeles [New York, 1996], p. 107, n.
48.)¯
FN72. Ibid., pp. 144-46.
FN72. Ibid., pp. 144-46.
FN73. Abigail Thernstrom, "Statistics and the
Politics of Minority Representation," in Alonso and Starr, The Politics of
Numbers, pp. 323-24. Thernstrom cites "Hearings on Extension of the
Voting Rights Act Before the Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights of he
Committee on the Judiciary, U. S. Senate, 94th Congress, 1st sess., 1975, p.
698." However, I did not find Badillo mentioned on p. 698 of that
subcommittee's hearing dated April 29, 1975.
FN74. Representative Roybal, himself, in 1974
proposed to change the term "Spanish-speaking" "to a more comprehensive phrase
like 'Spanish origin or descent,' or 'Spanish-speaking background.' "
p.75.
FN75. Hearings of the Committee on Post Office and
Civil Service, Subcommittee on Census and Statistics, Tuesday May 28, 1974, p.
81.
"One more or less fortuitous consequences of the experimentation with
several indices of Mexican-Americans was that a new grouping. 'Hispanics,' came
into being..." (Petersen, "Politics and the Measurement of Ethnicity," in Alonso
and Starr, The Politics of Numbers, p. 226.
FN76. "[T]he issue of numbers...is of primary
concern for administrators and persons interested in the broadest definition of
ethnic group status." (Jose Hernandez, Leo Estrada, and David
Alv¡rez, "Census Data and the Problem of Conceptually defining the Mexican
American Population," Social Science Quarterly, 53[4]:671-587 [March
1973], p. 676.).
FN77. Candace Nelson and Marta Tienda, "The
Structuring of Hispanic Ethnicity," in Richard D. Alba, ed., Ethnicity and
Race: Toward the Twenty-First Century[ New York, 1985]), p.
51.
FN78. The 1970 figure is for "Spanish Language"
persons, as supplied by the Ethnic Statistics Branch, Population Division, U. S.
Bureau of the Census, and presented in Jose Hernandez, Leo Estrada, and David
Alv¡rez, "Census Data and the Problem of Conceptually defining the Mexican
American Population," Social Science Quarterly, 53[4]:671-587 [March
1973], Table 1. Tje 1997 figure is cited from the Census Bureau by Steven
A. Holmes in The New York Times, August 7, 1998, "Hispanic Population
Moves Closer to Surpassing That of Blacks."
¯
FN79. Joan Moore and Harry Pachon, Hispanics in the United
States (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1985), p. 201.
FN80. Mireya Navarro, "Latins Gain Visibility in
Cultural Life of U.S," The New York Times, September 19,
1999.
FN81. Charles Wagley and Marvin Harris,
Minorities in the New World: Six Case Studies [New York, 1958], p.
4.
FN82.
See Beverly Duncan and Otis Dudley Duncan, "Minorities and the Process of
Stratification," American Sociological Review, 33(1968): 356-64;
364.
FN83. Marta Tienda and Vilma Ortiz, "'Hispanicity'
and the 1980 Census," Social Science Quarterly, 67(1):3-20 (March 1986);
p. 15.
See also: Candace Nelson and Marta Tienda, "The
Structuring of Hispanic Ethnicity," in Richard D. Alba, ed., Ethnicity and
Race: Toward the Twenty-First Century (New York, 1985), p.84.
FN84. Richard Rodriguez, author of Hunger of
Memory and other books drawing upon his experience as a Mexican immigrant,
wrote an article in the ¯Los Angeles Times_ of August 15, 1991 that seemed to
anticipate inclusion in the "white race." He likened the prospects of
Mexican immigrants to those of earlier German and Italian immigrants, "who knew
when they came, hopeful, to the tenement blocks of the East Coast. Life is
work." (Richard Rodriguez, "Closed Doors," Los Angeles Times, 15 August,
1991, reprinted in Nicolaus Mills, ed., Arguing Immigration: The Debate
Over the Changing Face of America [New York, 1994], pp. 143-47; 147.)
In his glance at history, Rodriguez seems to have overlooked a point of obvious,
though negative, implications for his thesis. What of the Black Americans
who knew nothing but hard work, and were in New York when these Europeans
arrived, but for whom opportunities of upward social mobility were barred, while
European immigrants, thanks to "ethnic politics," were getting jobs reserved for
"whites"?
FN85. Michael Lind, "The Beige and the Black,"
New York Times Magazine, August 16, 1998. (Lind is identified as
Washingon editor of Harper's Magazine and a columnist for the New
Leader.) Recently, Lind has commented that, "We're
back to the one drop rule...I'm disgustd with the whole thing." Noting
that "Mexico got rid of its rcial classifications in the 1820's," he
blames the black civil rights lobby for the retention of the "racial"
categorization in teh U. S. Census. But , at least in this account,
Lind does not suggest ways in which the the "race and color"
protections in the civil rights laws could be preserved if the "race" category
were dropped. (See "The Politics of Race and the Census." by Steven
A. Holmes, The New York Times, "Review of the Week," March 19,
2000.)
FN86. See note 63, above.
FN87. Hearings on Extension of the Voting Rights
Act Before the Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights of the Committee of the
Judiciary, U. S. Senate, 94th Congress, 1st sess., 1975, pp.
747-52 (29 April 1975). At the time of his testimony, Mr. Castillo was
serving his second term in the office of Houston City Controller.
Castillo
mentioned in passing how the Houston school board cynically responded to the
Supreme Court decision of 1954 outlawing racial segregation in public schools,
by pairing predominately Black and predominantly Mexican-American schools,
defending the policy on the grounds, as Mr. Castillo said, "that Mexican
Americans were to be defined as 'white,' and therefore they were integrating
black and white schools.". (Ibid., pp. 749-50.)
FN88. "Review of Federal Measurements of Race and
Ethnicity:" Hearings before the Subcommittee on Post Office and Civil
Service, House of Representatives, (April-November, 1993), 103 Congress, 1st
sess. (Washington, D. C., 1994), p. 175.
FN89. Ibid., pp. 180-81.
Nor are Puerto Ricans, the
second largest Latino component of the United States population, aligned with
American concepts of "race"; but rather regard themselves, and are generally
regarded by United States whites, as "non-white." On the basis of her own
life experience as well as her obsrvatiions as a sociologist, Clara Rodriguez
writes, "Only a minority of Puerto Ricans are "unquestionably white....What does
the term 'non-white' mean?...Non-white is to New York Puerto Ricans what Puerto
Ricans and blacks are, 'white' is what Puerto Ricans and blacks are not."
(Clara Rodriguez, "Puerto Ricans: Between Black and White," in New York
Affairs, New York in the Year 2000¯, 1:92-101 [Spring 1974]).
FN90. Stephen A. Holmes, "Hispanic Population Moves
Closer to Surpassing that of Blacks," The New York Times, August 7,
1998.
FN91. Nelson and Tienda, "The Structuring of
Hispanic Ethnicity," in Alba, ed., Ethnicity and Race, p.
51.
###
Appendix
The Status of
Puerto Ricans
The
treaty which formalized the cession of Puerto Rico from Spain to the United
States differentiated between Spanish subjects from the Iberian Peninsula living
in Puerto Rico, and "natives" of the island. "Spaniards" were to have full
legal rights, "the same...as citizens of the country to which the courts
belong." But "the civil rights and political status" of the "natives," was
to" be determined by the [U.S.] Congress."(A1) Three quarters of a century
later, the U. S. law similarly distinguished between Latinos, who were regarded
as "groups defined by 'race or color,'" and "persons born inr their
descendants," who were not.(A2) It is interesting to
note a contrast between the treaties of 1848 and 1898 with respect to United
States citizenship. In 1848, Mexicans living in the annexed territory,
were to have U. S. citizenship, "at the proper time (to be judged by the
Congress of the United States)." In 1998, the treaty ending the
Spanish-American War provided only that the "civil rights and political status
of native inhabitants" of Puerto Rico "shall be determined by Congress"; nothing
was said about U. S. citizenship. However, on 2 March 1917, presumably "in
a bid for Porto (sic) Rican loyalty" in World War I, Congress extended an
arms-length sort of U. S. citizenship to "native" Puerto
Ricans.(A3)
The
population of Puerto Rico in 1860 was reported as 51.5% "Blanco" ("White"); in
1940, the figure was 76.5%.(A4) Since the population throughout that
period was 99% native born, it would seem obvious that the nature of the
"whiteward" drift was political, rather than genetic. The 1950 census of
Puerto Rico tabulated "race" and "color" as significant characteristics of the
population of Puerto Rico; but following the institution of the "Commonwealth"
status for Puerto Rico in 1952, the Puerto Rico census omitted all references to
such "characteristics."(A5) The U.S. Bureau of the Census in 1980
made the general comment that where Puerto Rican are concerned: "Puerto
Rican may be white (mostly of Spanish descent), Negro, or mulatto." On the
mainland, the Bureau said, Puerto Rican were classified by race, "but the
classification is of slight significance now and is not used in the census of
the islands itself."(A6)
Personal testimony confirms the point: "If you live in Puerto Rico, you're
Puerto Rican, you are not asked to indicate your race, you are just asked to
fill out the census form. If you move to the United states mainland,
you're then asked to fill out your race [on the census form."(A7)
Unlike Mexico, Puerto Rico is an outright colony of the United States, a power
that will neither grant Puerto Rico independence, nor permit it to become a
state of the United States (because it can not expunge the
national language of Puerto Rico). The shadow of that colonial status
of the homeland, blights the existence of Puerto Ricans living in
mainland United States, who, whatever the census books say, are generally
denied the white-skin privileges accorded to European-Americans.
###
Notes for Appendix
AFN1. "Treaty of Peace [Treaty of Paris]," 10
December 1898, in Treaties and Other International Agreements of the United
States of America, 1776-1949, Charles I. Bevans, comp. (Washigton, D. C.,
1974), p. 619.
AFN2. Hearings before the U. S. Senate
Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights of the Committee on the Judiciary,
84th Congress, April 8 - May 1, 1975, p. 699.
AFN3. Bailey W. and Justine Whitfield Duffie,
Porto Rico: A Broken Pledge (New York, 1931), p. 40. I thank
William Vila Andino for sharing his copy of Broken Pledge with
me.
AFN4. In the last Spanish census of the population
of Puerto Rico, in 1887, 59.5% identified as "Whites" ("Blancos") and 40.5%, as
"Nonwhite" ("De Color"). The first census conducted after Puerto Rico was made a
colony of the United States, was done in 1899; it showed that 61.8 percent
identified as "white" and 38.2% as "nonwhite." The "white" proportion grew
in every succeeding census through 1940, when it was reported as 76.5%. (U. S.
Bureau of the Census: U. S. Census of Population: 1960. (General Social
and Economic Characteristics, United States Summary. Final Report
PC(1)-1C. [U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington D. C.] p. 8:
"Poblacion de Puerto Rico, por Zonas Urbana y Rural, y de la Ciudad de San Juan,
por Raza, Lugar de Nacimiento y Sexo: 1860-1940.")
AFN5. A Report of the Seventeenth Decennial
Census of the United States, Volume II, Characteristics of the Population, Part
53, p. 53-v, 53-17, 53-26, 27, 29 (Washington, D. C., 1953). ¯The
Eighteenth Decennial Census of the United States Census of Population: 1960_,
Volume I, Characteristics of the Population, Part 53, Puerto Rico (Washington,
D. C. 1953), p. 53-21.
AFN6. United States Department of Commerce, Bureau
of the Census, Methods and Materials of Demography, (revised fourth
printing) by Henry S. Shyrock, Jacob Siegel, and Associates, (Washington,
D. C., June, 1980), p. 257. The island population is simply described as
"99.9% Hispanic." (World Almanac and Book of Facts - 1997 [Mahwah, New
Jersey, 1996], p. 682.)
AFN3. Testimony of Sonia Perez, Senior Policy
analyst at the National Council of La Raza, before the Subcommittee on
Census, Statistics and Postal Personnel of the Committee on Post Office and
Civil Service, House of Representatives, 103rd Congress, 1 Sess., p. 189.
[30 June 1993.]).
###