The Census Bureau is in a tough position here:
1. People often feel strongly about a particular racial / ethnic / "origin" identity, and resist or resent not being able to choose how they self-identify (and in just the terminology that they prefer).
2. Race / ethnicity is objectively dodgy at best.
3. Race / ethnicity remains important for provision of services (and legal protection) to underrepresented, underserved, or otherwise disadvantaged groups.
4. As a corollary to #1, many people feel strongly about particular racial / ethnic / "origin" labels as applied to others, and will resist any changes that they feel threaten their own situation.
5. A lot of people are paranoid about the census and will assume any changes are political in nature in order to pursue some ideological end.
Good luck with all that, Census Bureau!
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Census Bureau Considers Changing Its Race/Hispanic Questions
The race and Hispanic origin categories on the 2010 Census form (and many other government forms) do not always match people's self-identification, and this is especially true for Hispanics. The Censu…
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They totally are in a tough position here.