The 2020 Census launched April 1st, 2020. With it comes yet another time where individuals have to distill their identities into check boxes with limited options. In this episode, we’re exploring how the race/ethnicity category options were created and how those available choices impact policy. Host Sarah Edwards talks with Cristina Mora, Associate Director of Sociology and Co-Director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley. Cristina wrote the book “Making Hispanics”, which explores the creation of the Hispanic ethnicity census category. Cristina shares the challenges in race/ethnicity category creation, policy and personal implications, and why the census is so important.

To fill out the 2020 Census for your household, visit 2020census.gov.

Transcript

Cristina: [00:00:07] Categories shape our lives the way we see ourselves as male or female. Young, old student, professor, but also very much white, black, Latino. That shapes the way we see ourselves, who our friends are. That comes into play as we think about where we want to send our kids to school, the names we want to provide, you know, who we think of as part of our communities, sort of those boundaries.

Sarah: [00:00:41] That was Cristina Mora, associate professor of sociology and co-director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley. As the census launched in April, we're particularly aware of the types of questions that people have to answer about themselves and about their identity on the census at the DMV, and just in daily life, the options available for people to choose their demographic groups can shape a whole range of outcomes. But how did those options get there and what policies did they dictate? As a part of our series exploring the policies that can make for a healthier democracy, we're turning to an expert to better understand the implications of these census categories. I'm Sarah Edwards and this is Talk Policy To Me. Today on the podcast Talking Identity the census and how we're all counted. Let's turn back to Christina Mora, who quite literally wrote the book on this. In this series of episodes, we're working to explore policies that can help to make for a healthier democracy. It sends us through season right now, and it's a particularly challenging one. So I'd love to start a little bit by talking about your work as it relates to the census. You wrote this book called Making Hispanics, which was about the way that the census categorization of the Hispanic ethnicity was created and kind of the ramifications around that. So to start out with in the book, you talk about the way in which people with family roots to Cuba, Puerto Rico, Mexico, and other Latin American countries didn't jointly identify as Hispanic and the changes that were made to create that into a categorical group. So first up, you know what was new to you as you were researching and writing your book?

Cristina: [00:02:44] I think one of the most surprising finding was about the really active role that community leaders played in the construction of the Hispanic or Latino category. Before I started my research, the common sort of narrative in the community, you'd find it in like journalistic writings, for example, was that the state somehow imposed this category that sort of the Census Bureau, sitting around their decision making roundtable, had just come up with Hispanic and decided to impose it on the population. You saw a lot of this type of narrative, not only in journalistic writings, but also within the community when people sort of reacted against it. Right. In the 1980s and 1990s, it wasn't uncommon to see bumper stickers where people said, Call me Mexican. I'm not Hispanic or I'm not Hispanic, I'm Cuban. And so part of that pushing back against ethnicity in the 1980s and 1990s was framed around sort of this is not something I chose. This is what the state wants to call me or that imposed it on me. And so when I went into this research, I thought, okay, this is really interesting that it's seen as something that the state is in poses, but a lot of our theories about states and how they work is that oftentimes bureaucratic agencies don't want to change anything. They would rather not make change right then do something different. And so I went in with this assumption and figure out this really just sort of state policy making story. And what I saw was really something different. I saw that this was as much a story of bureaucratic bureaucrats talking to themselves around the decision making story. But it was also a story about a political struggle for recognition. It was also a story of the way that Chicano activists on the Southwest and Puerto Rican activists in the Northeast were able to come together and to really identify the lack of data as an important sort of social movement goal and as important cause to rally against and to sort of make the state recognize them. And the story the book is really about this interplay between the way that activists make a demand for state recognition and what the state is able or in this case, the Census Bureau and the Office of Management and Budget, what kinds of sort of negotiated compromises that they're able to make. So one important thing is the way that we see, for example, black, Native American, and even during that time, there were there was like a Chinese racial group. Right. Latinos often wanted or often argued for just a Mexican category or just a Puerto Rican category. But for demographers and bureaucrats in the Census Bureau, these categories would have been too small for them to work with. And so there was this sort of view of sort of putting them all in a singular umbrella. And sort of the arguments were about what is the limits of this umbrella? How do we define it? What is that label about? And that really became a conversation that went back and forth. So that was a most surprising finding that it's not just a state story, but that's it's also a political story about a fight for recognition.

Sarah: [00:06:07] Definitely. I think that was one of the things that I found really interesting when I was reading your book, and I guess you touched on this a little bit already, but as we're thinking about it kind of from a policy and a political standpoint, you know, what has been the biggest impacts that we've seen from this action?

Cristina: [00:06:25] Oh, lots. Lots. You know, categories shape our lives the way we see ourselves as male or female, young, old, student, professor, but also very much white, black, Latino. That shapes the way we see ourselves, who our friends are. That comes into play as we think about where we want to send our kids to school, the names we want to provide, you know, who we think of as part of our communities, sort of those boundaries. And so the development, you know, it was uneven. The state and these political actors negotiate in creative. But then what had to happen is that there had to be a real story to it. There had to be, you know, cultural stories, cultural narratives. There had to be an argument about values and morals and how this bounded a real people, right? It had to go from being a category to an identity to a group identity. And that was also a process that involved a lot of the media, a lot of community leaders sort of willingly coming together to develop sort of new cultural products and move. These shows, books and everything about who Latinos were. Right. And this sort of created this cultural space for people to identify themselves with. Right. And so it could shape everything. We all know that in the United States, race powerfully predicts who we're going to marry. It also predicts a lot of who are going to be our friends and all kinds of other things. And so this became a real category that people could attach themselves to. And as they did, what could happen was that people that may have never known each other, considered one another within the same community, could then begin to relate to one another, right. In ways in which, for example, the powerful story or the sense of immigration. Right, is sort of, well, we're somehow connected because there's some sort of connection that we have to Latin America. Right. And at some point someone immigrated, right? Or there would be an argument about underrepresentation where, you know, the person from Miami might have never met the person from Oakland, but they might be able to see each other as part of the same community because they're both underrepresented. Right. And the only way to see yourselves as part of the same group is if you have that label, you have a category that can shape the patterns that we see in society for us.

Sarah: [00:08:57] Well, I think I've been thinking about it. There's sort of this interesting tension between like the way in which people shape policy and the way in which policy shapes people. And thinking about the census as this large bureaucratic in many ways very slow moving, infrequent event. How important are categories in the census as compared to other opportunities that people have to think of themselves as a part of these different racial ethnic groups?

Cristina: [00:09:24] Yeah, and one thing to think about is that policy decisions in one domain affect policy decisions across a variety of domains. Right? So even if we only fill out the census form once every ten years, let's say you just never get the access right. Yet, you know, very quickly, after the Census Bureau adopted the Hispanic Latino category, within about ten years, all 50 states had this on their birth certificates and death certificates. Right. And then when states have it on birth and death records, then we have it going down to sort of DMV records, to school board records to. And then it becomes not something that's on one form that you see once in a decade, but it becomes something that you see when you sign up for a driver's license or you enroll your kids in schools, things of the sort. And then it becomes something that other people refer to you as, right? This provided a language for whites, blacks, Asians and others that weren't in the Latino category to call you and to sort of be able to group you and see you. So it became even if one personally in the 1980s or 1990s would have said, call me Mexican, not Hispanic. Right. That's still meant that others outgroups were calling them that. Right. It still meant that this is how the sort of rest of the world was perceiving us. And right in as much as identity is about how much you identify, but also what others label us categorize you as. You know, that became a really powerful outcome.

Sarah: [00:11:00] Definitely. You know, I took Angela Glover Blackwell's course, and one of the biggest things I took away from it was just every single time we can, we needed to be disaggregating statistics by race and thinking about if we don't have the appropriate groupings to be able to do that. There's definitely a story that we lose.

Cristina: [00:11:19] Definitely. And that was the argument in the 1960s. It's when, for example, activists in Los Angeles wanted to sort of argue that poverty was endemic and run rampant in, you know, Mexican barrios. And whenever they tried to access a Census Bureau report on poverty, for example, the data was black and white right there. Their data was tended to be lost and mixed in with the white population. And so patterns for them were never told it the same as when Puerto Rican activists wanted to make a claim that Latinos were much more likely to be unemployed. And Census Bureau data was only about black and white differences in employment. They cannot make an argument for, for example, Spanish language job training classes and programs. So there is a way where data puts you on the radar of the federal government for sure, and then also lends legitimacy to activist claims.

Sarah: [00:12:19] You really presented the way in which the census can be so pivotal for all of these leading effects. But thinking about a little bit, is there a problem with the way that our census is constructed? Right. I mean, I think stepping away from this current political moment, thinking about the way that it is infrequent, pretty bureaucratic. Do you see that as just being how it has to be, or is there something else that you would want to see from it?

Cristina: [00:12:44] Well, it's an imperfect institution, right? And no policy is perfect. One of the things that tends to happen is even though one of the negotiated compromises was, okay, there'll be this umbrella category and underneath it they'll be Mexican, Cuban, Puerto Rican. Lots of times it's hard to desegregate the data. Reports aren't written in that way, right? Reports are written to make that category large enough so that we can compare Latinos to blacks, to whites, for example. So that's when there's always a danger of lumping everyone in such that you lose in certain critical nuances, like the fact that Cubans during that time were basically part of a different economic and social class than Mexicans were. And so lots of sort of the Mexican, the variation was less. I think that's one way to think about it. Another way to think about it is that these were, you know, imperfect compromises. And one thing that happened is we ended up with a distinct question. Right. And so a Mexican-American in Los Angeles, even right now, finds himself filling out a census form. And they might say, yes, I'm Hispanic, Latino. And then it goes down to, okay, what is your race? And we know from census data that a large majority of the other race category are Latinos, because Latinos identify often racially as Latino or Hispanic and don't see white, black, Asian, Native American categories as sort of categories that they identify racially. Right. And so all of these came out of sort of political compromises. And because the bureau is often slow moving and there's lots of lots of politics involved, especially right now. Are there always politics involved in the bureau? You know, we have a situation where half of Latinos select other and then of the other category, 80 or so percent are Latino. And so you've got this huge, huge population that doesn't see itself, that doesn't see itself as defined or represented in our racial categories.

Sarah: [00:15:03] Yeah, that's definitely a challenge. And I guess thinking to the future, is that something that you would see changing? You know, what is next for the Hispanic Latina categorization?

Cristina: [00:15:16] Yeah. So the bureau in 2015, you know, conducted a bunch of content tests and analysis and it was certainly their recommendation in 2015 and 2017 that the race question be amended to read race or ethnic origin and that Latino be a category for which sort of that could also represent a racial identity. But you know, the bureau is within the Office of Management and Budget, which is underneath the Department of Commerce, which is run by appointees, by the president, and lots of the bureau's recommendations. Even our best demographers, our best scientists, people that just want to have the best data possible. Lots of ten. Their recommendations are heated by political actors. Right. And so this is certainly something that the bureau has recommended, just like it has certainly recommended that decennial census form include a middle Eastern North African category. But scientists work in service of a cause and the state, and yet in their best scientific recommendations aren't always heeded for, you know, a variety of reasons. One of them certainly political which is-

Sarah: [00:16:37] So challenging to see. I actually had a question that I wanted to talk about, about the Middle Eastern, North Africa and potential categorization. I think you touched a little bit on the political side, but kind of what are the challenges to add this or another category to the census?

Cristina: [00:16:55] Yeah, the challenge of the MENA category is the challenge of what it's like to create a racial category in this day and age where people are very outspoken about their identities. People are very outspoken about. I feel very passionate about mixed race heritage, about sort of their multiple origins. I sat on some of the MENA kat mina, the MENA category discussions at the bureau. And, you know, a big question was what are the boundaries like, Where do the boundaries expand? Does this mean that someone from Israel is going to be in the same category as someone from Palestine? Does the category include, Chad? You know, someone from Chad, just like someone from Turkey, for example, such that it would cross skin color, you know, and other kinds of lines. And if you keep the boundary too small, do you have a larger enough group if you make it too big? Is it meaningful? Is it just Middle Eastern or would it be Middle Eastern, North African? And so all of these are really hard questions with all of these are really hard questions with no easy answers. And, you know, in some ways, no one has the answer, right. Who is you know, in some ways, no one is the expert on where racial group boundaries lies, at least, you know, even in this day and age. All of our anthropological texts, sociological texts will tell you that race is a social construction, Right. And the state plays a large role in that. But this doesn't mean that there are clear cut rules for what it should be.

Sarah: [00:18:39] Definitely. And to some sense it's like what it should be is defined by the people in it. But if there's people in it who think they should belong, that someone else shouldn't. Obviously, that gets very messy very fast.

Cristina: [00:18:50] Yeah, that assumes that people have a like there is a common understanding.

Sarah: [00:18:55] I think in line with what you were saying about a lot of Latino folks ending up selecting other thinking about the Middle Eastern North African communities. I've read that sometimes they'll end up selecting white, sometimes Asian, sometimes other. How do you think things would be different if there was a cohesive category?

Cristina: [00:19:16] So they're often reclassified as white. If they say other and there is a movement within the community that was not just sort of, you know, well before the 2000. Right. Throughout the 1990s. Right. And the idea was if we have data, we will be able to document racial disparities or the disparities that our group faces, just like discrimination in the labor force, for example. Some of the momentum behind that movement tempered down in the wake of 9/11 when some feared that actually being recognized and targeted and sort of positioned as nonwhite as would facilitate much more racial discrimination or helped to legitimize racial discrimination. But recently, there had been much more momentum to have that category. And yet, you know, despite the bureau's recommendation, this is also still ultimately the decision of OMB and the Department of Commerce.

Sarah: [00:20:20] So turning a little bit to the 2020 census right now as it stands. Thinking about, there are so many reasons why response rates will be lower. Partially, you know, COVID 19 in some ways feels like a very long time ago that the citizenship question was going on. But obviously that's really scary for a lot of people. So what is at risk if we as a country respond to the census at lower rates and specifically what's at risk if different groups responded differentially lower rates?

Cristina: [00:20:55] Well, obviously, different communities, different depend on state funds and government funds differently. And it can be something as very simple as being undercounted. Thus, your community receives less money for roads or for schools or things like that. And we know then that if there are some communities that are hard to count, like Latinos, for example, or children, their communities are likely to get less funding for the needed services or the services that they're that those folks need. Right. And we know that the communities that tend to need more or rely more on state resources for schools, for public schools, for example, are communities of color, right, in poorer communities. And so, you know, unfortunately, COVID, the fact that we went online, the citizenship, all of that is creating this situation in which the hardest to count populations are still going to be least likely to overcome all those extra hurdles and be counted. And every community is quantifying this differently, but facing losses of hundreds to millions of dollars, so that's on that side. Right. And then on the other side is if you're not counted, remember that census data is also connected to political representation. Right. And there were estimates that if the Latinos were severely undercounted in California or the homeless population or kids, for example, California would lose, you know, 1 to 2 representatives in the next legislature. And so it's the political appointments and it's the sort of economic revenue that's lost. Third, I think it's also just sort of the loss of high quality data. Right. There is no data set like the Census Bureau data. Right. There's no other data set that has that level of legitimacy, that has the ability to be combined with other, you know, all kinds of other factors like ecological variables that we can get out of understanding what census tract people live. I mean, it is our foremost data set and, you know, less people filling it out and especially if less people it's not sort of a random sample, but it's sort of some communities being less likely, the less high quality data set data that community leaders have to use when they advocate for things like more funding for public schools or things of the sort.

Sarah: [00:23:34] The next kind of big question that I'm thinking about as the series of episodes is around like policies that are strengthening our democracy. And so thinking you definitely touched on this a little bit earlier but and sort of how the way that we appropriately count people in their appropriate groups can strengthen our democracy. But I'd love to hear a little bit more if there's other ways in which you think appropriately counting people, appropriately categorizing people enhances our systems.

Cristina: [00:24:04] I think our best data, our best census data, if we could have a dream census where there existed no hard to count populations, if everyone could be represented without fear, I think we would have a real, real true picture of what the future of the nation looks like. We'd have we'd be able to do much better racial and demographic forecasting. We would be able to forecast how much school districts would be. We would know, like better economic forecasts, we'd have a better description of where the country is going, what populations are at most need, and exactly where those populations are most need. We would have the information that we would need to make the hardest decisions about the future of democracy and about what the meaning of citizenship is and being sort of an American in this time of high inequality and high levels of political polarization. And without that best data we are inhibiting ourselves, we are almost going into the future with a major blindfold.

Sarah: [00:25:29] As we've seen in our other conversations in this series around what makes a healthier democracy, representation is so essential. As Cristina shared, when groups are better understood, it can illuminate what groups aren't being represented. And this can help us to create the plans to get to a place of better representation. Clearly we know our system is imperfect right now, but we can only continue to push for better category options to represent multiracial diversity and specificity so we can align with how people actually see their own identity. But the first thing that any of us can do today is make sure that all of us complete the census and will make sure that our communities get funding and resources based on our true population size and needs. Visit 2020Census.gov to fill out the online census for your household. If you haven't done so already. Thanks for joining us. I'd like to give a special thanks to you, because today is actually my last podcast with Talk Policy To Me as I graduate from the Goldman School. I'm excited to go from being a host to being a continued listener like all of you. So I'd like to give a big thanks to the Talk Policy To Me team, the MPP class of 2020 and to all of you for listening. Talk Policy To Me is brought to you by the Goldman School of Public Policy and the Berkeley Institute for Young Americans. Our executive producers are Bora Lee Reed and Sarah Swanbeck. Michael Quiroz is our sound engineer. Music heard on today's episode is by Pat Mesiti-Miller and Blue Dot Sessions. I'm Sarah Edwards. Thanks for listening.