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Beyond Black and White
This article appeared in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram on Sunday March 4, 2001.
Beyond
black and white
The 2000 Census will offer data about the nation's growing multiracial
population.
By
Mike Lee
When Elizabeth Testerman's son was young, he used a
child's logic to define himself.
"For some reason, ever since this kid was 2, he would
tell people
he was gray," she said. Testerman, who is black, and her husband,
who is white, have five mixed-race children, including four they
adopted.
Leticia Luna is raising three children whose heritage includes
Mexican, American Indian, Russian Jewish, black and native Alaskan.
She uses the blanket definition "Hispanic," she said, figuring
that
"Hispanic is just a mix of everything."
Depending on who is doing the estimating, multiracial families
such as Testerman's and Luna's make up 1 percent to 5 percent of the U.S.
population.
Later this month, when the U.S. Census Bureau begins releasing
state population figures from the 2000 Census, Americans will get
an unprecedented look at how their neighbors define themselves.
In the past, people have been assigned to racial groups that
are
defined in black and white. But with the new multiracial
designation, a person can choose from 63 combinations - or 126 if
someone is Hispanic.
While some multiracial families, such as Testerman's, praise
the
census for allowing them to fully define their heritage, others are
worried that the numbers could lead the nation into, well, a gray
area.
Some civil rights groups are concerned that political factions
will be weakened. Others worry that new racial subgroups could be
invented, much the way professional golfer Tiger Woods coined the
term "Cablinasian" to describe his Caucasian, black, American
Indian and Asian roots.
"The simple fact is that Congress, the Legislature and
even the
commissioners court and the city council and the school board
districts are apportioned based upon the census," said Roy Brooks,
an assistant to Tarrant County Commissioner Dionne Bagsby and a
longtime civil rights leader in Fort Worth.
But, he said, "if we get too many Cablinasians, it's
going to
dilute our strength as a voting bloc."
Census numbers are used to divide billions of dollars in
federal
funds and to set voting districts.
Race has been a part of the census since 1790, when slaves
were
counted as three-fifths of a person to balance the number of
congressional seats between Southern and Northern states.
Until 1960, government census takers who went door to door
decided how people should be categorized. As the Census Bureau
phased in the mail-in census in 1960 and 1970, people began to make
those decisions.
The Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act of the 1960s
put
more emphasis on the census because the decennial count was used to
determine whether voting districts were being drawn to keep
minorities out of office.
The 1980 and 1990 censuses grouped together Asians and Pacific
Islanders and asked people to check only one box, with a separate
question for Hispanic origin.
The federal Office of Management and Budget decided in 1997
to
allow people to choose more than one racial definition in the 2000
Census, a change former Census Director Kenneth Prewitt called "the
beginning of the end" of the old system of racial classifications.
On the 2000 Census, people could choose any combination of
white,
black, American Indian, Asian, Pacific Islander or other races.
There is a separate question for Hispanic origin, which can include
any race.
Testerman, who is a graduate student in sociology, said she
has
always struggled with how to define her children, Erik, Sheena,
Danny, Nikki and Mark. When she enrolled Erik, now 16, in school,
administrators told her that she had to check one box on the
enrollment form - black or white.
"It just aggravated me to death," she said. "That,
to me, is a
choice that they need to make. I'm not going to do it for them, and
the school's not going to do it, either."
Testerman said her husband decided not to answer the race
question on the 1990 Census. The 2000 Census was something of a
relief, she said.
"The kids don't want to deny either side of their heritage,
and I
see no reason to make them do that," she said.
Testerman has a lot of company. The U.S. Supreme Court struck
down anti-miscegenation laws in 1967, and interracial marriages
have since become more commonplace.
In 1998, practice runs for the census found that about 5
percent
of the population in Sacramento, Calif., and 1 percent of the
population in South Carolina was of mixed heritage.
A study in California found that 14 percent of all children
born
in 1997 were of mixed heritage, said Karen Chung, executive
director of the Hapa Issues Forum, a nonprofit group for people of
mixed-Asian heritage.
There are Web sites, magazines and political groups for
multiracial people.
Celebrities such as Woods and Lenny Kravitz have declared
themselves multiracial.
Steve Lewis, who operates the Web site MixedFolks.com,
said he
sees the beginnings of an identity movement for people of mixed
race.
"More and more people don't want to claim either side.
They don't
want to be one or the other. I'm mixed, and that's what I am," he
said.
The trend, coming just as minority groups began to make gains
in
congressional representation, has concerned a number of people.
William Spriggs, director of research for the Urban League,
said
the new categories ignore the United States' historical views about
race.
As long as discrimination exists, the census should use a
wider
definition of black people to track issues such as voting rights
and police discrimination, he said.
Proponents of the multiracial category are "naive,"
Spriggs said.
"It doesn't matter what they say on the census. It matters what the
police officer thinks when he pulls them over."
Larry Gonzales, president of the National Association of
Latino
Elected and Appointed Officials, said Hispanics are more concerned
about having an accurate count than about losing voting strength to
multiracial groups.
"Hispanic" has come to be a blanket term for various
racial and
ethnic groups united by the Spanish language - including Indians in
Mexico and Dominicans of African descent, he said.
"For these purposes, it serves us very well," Gonzales
said.
The Office of Management and Budget has said that racial
categories cannot be used to deny anyone's civil rights. A person
who is half-white and half-black, for example, will be able to file
a discrimination claim based on being black.
Chung, with the Hapa Issues Forum, said the interests of
multiracial people do not necessarily conflict with those of other
minority groups.
"Folks have tried to sort of pit the mixed-race organizations
against the civil rights groups," said Chung, whose parents are
Korean and Argentine. "We're working together to come up with an
amicable solution where people can accurately identify themselves.
But since we do benefit [from civil rights laws] ... it's also
important for us to ensure that civil rights enforcement is done."
Fawn Nonaka, a public relations worker in Los Angeles who
is part
Anglo and part Japanese, said she is more interested in seeing the
number of multiracial people in the census than in the political
implications.
"I was really interested in the opportunity to get the
numbers
out there and then see where it goes. Maybe that's naive of me, but
it's not something that I considered," she said.
There could be changes in the wind. The U.S. Commerce Department,
which oversees the census, announced Thursday that it will take a
poll to determine whether the new system of race questions was
effective.
Spriggs, with the Urban League, said the Census Bureau could
easily address those concerns by allowing people to check one box
for political purposes such as enforcing voting rights laws, then
using another question to show their whole ethnic background.
Eric Patterson, who is black, said he and his wife, Rita
Patel,
whose family is from India, have a plan if anyone ever tells them
to check one box for their son.
"We'll make our own box and we'll check it," he
said.
"I look at the big picture. Here in the next 1,000 years,
everybody's going to be gray anyway."