The WB11 website displays an article about the 2010 Census, and some controversies surrounding the racial categories. As if it weren’t already difficult for some people to fit themselves into a clean cut box of with a label, it turns out that people of Latin ethnicity don’t have anything to check off this year. The article mentions how many people which identified themselves as part of this large ethnic group were left with no choice but to check off ‘other’. Although I oppose racial profiling of any kind, be it for the census even, yet I cannot but agree with the people who were left unhappy. Spanish is the second most widely spoken language in the United States, and Latin-Americans make up a large majority of the population. I feel it is some sort of blunder, since the article mentions that categories on the census included different nationalities as a race for Asians. What’s more horrible, is that the Census preparers blamed it on a strict budget, and that they couldn’t include every possible category out there. Well…I think that people are already overly sensitive when it comes to race. However it is one thing to discriminate against someone because of their race, but another to completely exclude a whole group, as if though they didn’t exist. A parallel to this story is the public rally for a better immigration reform, so that all illegal immigrants living in the U.S. may become legal, since they contribute to society, yet are intelligible to receive any government benefits. In cities like New York this is a big problem, since most of the illegal workers here are of Latin background, and are completely unaccounted for by government.
http://www.wpix.com/news/local/wpix-census-hispanics,0,4163472.story
http://www.wpix.com/news/local/wpix-immigration-rally,0,6829800.story
Image credited to http://www.asbarez.com/
