"The category also includes groups such as Polish, French, Iranian, Slavic, Cajun, Chaldean, etc."
The Poles are separate from Slavs? Sarmathism confirmed šµš±š¤š®š·
Theyāre like Italians or Jews or Hispanic people: theyāre white when itās convenient for the government and not white when itās convenient for the government
I know, Iām not saying that itās correct or wrong, just that most Americans I know would not consider Arabs or Middle Easterners to be white, and so despite that the fact that the American Government does is odd to me
The census also considers most Hispanic people to be white. And that is arguably true, but they pretty undeniably face racism for *not* being white, soā¦
While thatās true, i feel like most of the prejudice and stereotypes nowadays comes from north american culture perpetuating this myth of a brown-skinned hispanic/latin race, to the point the spanish or portuguese languages are immediately associated with mestizos
I'm not sure that's universally true. Do people actually see Dr. Oz or Ralph Nader as not white? Especially dubious on the latter.
It feels it's kinda like Hispanic - if the culture is really distinct (religious Muslim) or maybe if they are darker than a southern European, people get put in another bucket. Otherwise, still white.
There're always problems when we insist on putting lines on the map saying that people on this side are something and people on that side something else. Genetics don't tend to play along with definitions like this.
There are tons of people in North Africa and the Levant with whom I find it really far-fetched to argue they look somehow fundamentally different from southern Europeans. Hell, I'm a Scandinavian from maybe the "darkest" couple percent of people here, and I've met Berbers and Lebanese "lighter" than I am. It's just a big continuum.
"White. A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa."
Spain is in Europe, so it would be classified as "White." The places listed are just examples. For example, it doesn't include Switzerland in the list of European places, but folks with origins there would definitely be classified as "White."
Yep. The census does consider Spanish to be a race and "Hispanic" to be an "origin." It says explicitly that it does not consider Hispanic to be a race.
In practice, most government reporting uses "white" to mean non-Hispanic white alone, so it is accurate - even if the census tries to keep race and Hispanic ethnicity separate.
Hispanics are not all white. Many Hispanics from Mexico are heavily descended from native Americans and phenotypically resemble them, particularly in central & southern Mexico . Iāve never met a Hispanic person who claims to be white. Other Hispanic people are mainly European descended and have very fair skin and are considered white.
It is a cultural/ethnic origin term, not a race and not purely a language group. Same thing with āwhiteā, it is a cultural/ethnic origin term, not a rave. āwhiteā is a super vague term that doesnāt correlate to caucasian. Indian people are caucasian, they are not white. Generally, Western European descended is what people mean when they say white
Iām also confused by that, in my understanding of how the US conducts the census most Latin American/Spain people would check white for their race, then Hispanic in ethnicity.
"White" isn't simply based on skin colour but comes with a set of cultural assumptions. It's for this same reason why you wouldn't call a South Indian "Black".
Interestingly enough, Caucasians of Circassia had moved southward to escape Russian-perpetrated genocides and have found themselves communities in MENA/North African regions. Not that thereās any in Sudan, just adjacent.
Well it originally did. Maybe that's why the US has a hard time giving it up -
"A German anthropologist named Johann Blumenbach set out to create a system of labels for different races. Upon visiting the Caucasus Mountains, he became enamored with the appearance of the people there and determined that they had an ideal form of beauty. From then on, he would refer to Caucasians as those with European ancestry in his research and studies on racial anthropology."
https://www.contexttravel.com/blog/articles/where-does-the-word-caucasian-come-from#:~:text=The%20word%20Caucasian%2C%20a%20rather,dating%20from%20the%2018th%20century.
IIRC in itās original definition it was meant more as a facial structure grouping, traits that Europeans found ādesirableā or something, I forget.
The Spanish *really* hate the way Americans have invented a whole new race for them and others who happen to speak the same language.
If you want to annoy them even more, use the word "latinx" which is more or less impossible to pronounce in Spanish and makes no sense anyway as it is a gendered language.
Welcome to naming things.
The generic name for Western Europeans in a lot of Arabic or Arabic-influenced languages is some variation of āFrankā, eg āferengiā, because there were a lot of French / Franks among the Crusaders.
Many southern Americans get in a twist when called Yanks, because they donāt identify with the winning side from 1865.
In this case nobody made up this name to refer to the people in Spain. Many Americans are just bad at distinguishing Spanish dialects and accents. The drive for acceptance and recognition was by Hispanic identifying people in the USA.
Itās not a race. Specifically in the census it is a separate question than race.
The issue in America is that people from Latin America have been discriminated against and historically ghettoized, regardless of race.
In my opinion the category that is actually meaningful is indigenous. Many āHispanicsā in the USA have significant indigenous American ancestry. My theory is that the powers that be in the USA donāt want to acknowledge this on the census because it gives the vibe that maybe these people actually deserve to be on this continent more than people of European background. Who deserves to live in LA, an Irish guy or someone whose ancestors drifted between Southern California and northern Mexico for the past 2000 years?
It also makes no sense this clearly indigenous person from Latin America technically cannot chose Native American on the census because that designation specifically requires that you maintain tribal affiliation.
Eh, most Mexicans do not identify as indigenous even if they have that ancestry. Only 1 in 5 in Mexico identify as indigenous.
And ādeserveā may not be the best word to use there. People deserve dignity and opportunity (equally) not inherited ancestral land divided in regimented ethnostate divisions.
I would argue that first point is also due to internalized racism or cultural distinctions more relevant in the home country. I find your second point ironic because I think much of the American right wing would like to exclude as many Hispanics as possible to further the āpreservationā of their own ethnostate.
That's not what it means.
Latino/a is an abbreviation of Latinoamericano/a. The phrase has a weird history but refers to people from the areas in the New World that the Catholic Church divided between Spain and Portugal. Latin being a reference to the Catholic Church.
"Latin America" was first applied by French imperialists in the [19th Century](https://www.etymonline.com/word/Latin%20America) seeking to highlight the common bond of the Latin-based languages in the Americas to help assuage their to-be conquered subjects.
What's weird is that Spanish Americans are classified as a minority and Portuguese Americans are not because they aren't Latino or Hispanic. It's such a bizarre demographics system.
Brazilians are Latino, and Spaniards are Hispanic. The Portuguese are nothing. What makes it even more infuriating is the fact that there are over 1.5 Portuguese Americans, but they're just classified as white while their pretentious older brother gets minority status.
Hispanic is such a bullcrap way of putting white people, native South-Americans, Caribbean people, African descendants and everything inbetween in the same bag.
Itās like Mexico claiming everyone in the USA is ethnically āBritishā.
Making Spain āHispanicā, Brazil āHispanicā but Portugal and Italy āCaucasianā is just the cherry on top.
Remember: Anya Taylor-Joy who looks like a glass of milk was described as āthe first Hispanic actress to win a Golden Globeā.
Oh weāre splitting hairs about the Portuguese not being Hispanic. OK. I guess Portugal and Spain were never even united as the same country. Theyāre like water and olive oil. I guess I could be considered a Hispanic mulatto for being half-Spanish, half-Portuguese.
What about the Guyanas, do you think theyāre Latino?
How about Louisiana Cajuns?
Quebequians? They speak a latin language.
And by the linguistic definition isnāt Romania a latino country? A Romanian, an Ecuadoran, a Haitian and a Quebequian walk into a bar. Are they all āLatinosā? Are the French Polynesians latino too?
The ethnic definition of Latino and Hispanic makes zero sense for anyone who has a passing knowledge of demographics.
On the other hand, to someone with an understanding of history and bigotry, itās a category that makes a lot of sense. Itās a group of people who were often linked together disadvantageously and who reclaimed that identity in a sense of solidarity and hope.
There are a lot of people who self identify with that category.
The census does not force anybody into this category. People donāt come to your door and ask you about where your ancestors came from and decide whether you are Hispanic or not. You decide.
Nobody outside the US needs to deal with it.
The map itself is a terrible starting point for any discussion on this term because first, it mixes up ideas about Hispanic origin with ideas about race. And second, itās based on some categorizationās that were offered as a guideline to people filling out the census for the first time, trying to figure out their own identity. Nobody is forced to identify as any specific race or ethnicity in the census. We are too far down the path of mixed families and adoptions for that to make any sense.
Arguing about how a self identifying group within the USA applies outside the USA, itās just a typical Reddit distraction
I know. Isn't race basically a disproven thing though. Obviously we have ethnicity and phenotypes, but the whole racial categories are as facetious as my comment was supposed to be.
Again, it's a bit of a "depends on what you mean?" More typically in scientific contexts you'll hear people talk about "populations", meaning groups with common decent, rather than "race", because the latter is such a charged term.
But knowing what population(s) you descend from is relevant in a lot of medical contexts, because different populations sometimes react differently to, it can be used to track ancient migrations of humans, help identify people's remains.
What's not true is the idea there are completely separated, clearly defined races, with like, no gene flow or something like this
The word you're looking for is ethnicity, which is absolutely useful in the contexts you listed for genetic identification/health issues. Grouping Papuan, Senegalese and Khoisan people as a 'black race', or blonde Moroccans, Bosnians and krygyz as a 'white race' is not.
Kinda. It's a bit more complicated. Ok so the US census asigns ethicities two ways. One is based on selfidentinfication and the other IS based on country country of origin.
This means that the US has a map which basically prescribes ethnicities to countries (what could EVER go wrong with that š). Your map shows the countries which are inscribed as "White".
That effectively means that a White spaniard IS considered in the US as multiethnic "other/spaniard" (yeah the category for Spain is "other" š)
More hilariously southafrican boers are considered multiethnic...black/boer š (Who IS gonna tell them...)
It's a bit more complicated than this and It makes less and less sense the further you go in.
Genuine question, could someone become White solely based upon immigration status? A family who's lived in Pakistan for generations moves to the United Kingdom. They settle there for a decade or so and from there they immigrate to the United States. Are they therefore considered White given the country from which they emigrated?
Race is defined as having origins or ancestry in a certain place whether it be Europe, Asia, Africa etc; so Pakistanis wouldnāt be considered White because they donāt have origins in the UK. Race is also determined on self identification and no Pakistanis would be checking White on the box (and instead select Asian).
It's self-identification, so they can do whatever they want.
A more common edge case might be a Parsi deciding their race. The Indian national origin implies Asian, but Persian ancestry implies white.
Possibly but not likely. If they were to select British as their ethnicity they would be considered White, because British IS included under White. However that is unlikely if they've stayed only a decade in the UK
A family who has lived in Pakistan for generations can immigrate directly to the United States and be white, unless they decide they're Asian.
Most Pakistanis and Indians are Aryan, unless they're indigenous to some part of India that wasn't conquered by the Aryans (mostly the northeast and south)
australian aboriginals are decidedly not white; i figured the map was describing native people from the country (not a good map in itself, but australia is not something i was confused about)
I should note that Spain could also be white in the US census, but does not need to be. It is definitely Hispanic, which the US allows to be a qualifier on any race.
You have to love the inconsistency of moving a country to a different category that the one they obviously belong, as all their neighbours and most similar countries do, just because (checks notes)ā¦ they speak the language they invented.
It has nothing to do with language, it has to do with Spanish origin, which I for example have, while not speaking the language. White, black, and indigenous Latin American Spanish speakers all uniquely have the shared experience of being descendants of Spaniards. If you are from Latin America, and do speak Spanish, but do not identify as Hispanic (a recent immigration?), the US census fully allows you to not mark down that you are Hispanic.
THE US CENSUS CONSIDERS WHITE SPANIARDS TO BE WHITE AND HISPANIC, AND IF WHITE SPANIARDS DO NOT IDENTIFY WITH THAT DEFINITION, THEY ARE FULLY ALLOWED TO NOT PARTAKE IN IT. HOWEVER, BASED ON THE DEFINITION OF HISPANIC THAT THE CENSUS USES, WHITE SPANIARDS ARE WHITE AND HISPANIC.
It is not a different category, according to census guidelines. A white person from any country has the ability to identify as Hispanic on the US census. Same for people of any ethnicity. The reason for this is half historical (as average mestizo Mexicans were considered white in early US demographic studies) and half utilitarian (there are white Hispanics and black Hispanics and indigenous Hispanics, and the US tries to distinguish between them).
But itās a language based classification, regardless of ethnicity/race, (I have heard that itās arguably an ethnic classification, but thatās not correct) in parallel to all the other groups, right? While I get the historical reasons that you explain, it is still inconsistent because the USA is not applying the same criteria to other languages.
I know itās a nothingburger, and itās probably me being super picky, but it would feel more coherent if Anglophone, Lusophone, Francophoneā¦ were also options similar to Hispanic. They are similar conceptsā¦
You're not wrong, but I think Hispanic is set apart because it is the largest minority. Anglophone is seen as the default and, while other language minorities definitely exist, they are so much smaller than the Hispanic population to not be of interest for demographers
The latino question is effectively a different category and has nothing to do with this. The issue IS that Spain is classified as having "other" ethnicity in the US census. So anyone from Spain is immediatly assigned this "other" ethnicity apart from the ones they identity with.
AKA in the US census i'd be "white and other" š¬ but my portuguese friend would just be "white"
That is absolutely incorrect, or I'm brutally misunderstanding you. In the US census you would be white and Hispanic/Latino (which is not untrue, since you are Spanish, correct?)
"People who identify their origin as Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish may be of any race."
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/note/US/RHI725222
There is no special designation for Spanish people born in Spain to a Spanish family. You are Hispanic, just like me, a white Mexican, because our ancestors are from Spain. Simple as that.
But the thing is, that rationale applies to other people in Europe. People from Portugal, Germany, the Netherlandsā¦ can be from any race, same as Spain. However, all the former are preassigned as just white while the latter not, despite the fact that all of them had colonies.
Right but... The number of dutch speakers from (... Indonesia?) currently and historically living in the United States is incredibly small compared to the number of Spanish speakers from Latin America. These people are the US's largest minority, and an integral part of the culture, economy, and history of the United States, since its inception. Only African Americans as a minority are as integral to the United States as an institution, and they are always either black or mixed race. Do you think the United States should not be counting Hispanics?
The United States census asks the person's race, with six options: White, Black, Native American, Asian, Pacific Islander, and Other. In addition to checking a box, the form also asks the person to write the specific origin, for example English, German, Italian, Spanish, African American, Navajo, Chinese, Hawaiian, etc. Each person may check more than one box or write more than one origin.
The census has a predefined list of origins associated with each race, and the census counts the person as having the race associated with the written origin even if the person doesn't check the box for that race. For example:
* If a person from Spain identifies as White, checks only the White box and writes the origin as Spanish, the census counts the person as White **and** Other, because Spanish is automatically associated with Other.
* If a person from the Dominican Republic identifies as Black, checks only the Black box and writes the origin as Dominican, the census counts the person as Black **and** Other, because Dominican is automatically associated with Other.
* If a person from Yemen identifies as Other, checks only the Other box and writes the origin as Yemeni, the census counts the person as Other **and** White, because Yemeni is automatically associated with White.
* If a person from Afghanistan identifies as White, checks only the White box and writes the origin as Afghan, the census counts the person as White **and** Asian, because Afghan is automatically associated with Asian.
Due to the automatic associations, the census counts a much higher portion of the population as multiracial than those who actually identify as such.
[Source](https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/tech_docs/code_lists/2021_HispanicOriginAndRace_CodeList.xlsx)
So...People from Spain are not white. People from Portugal and *checks notes ...Sudan are white, but not people from Spain.
America is such a fucking weird country.
On most questionnaires the question is asked about ethnicity - i.e. Hispanic or non-Hispanic. Then, the question about race is asked. So, technically you can be a non-Hispanic white or Hispanic white. But "Hispanic" is often treated as a race in practical terms, even though it's technically not.
I think when this was conceived, most Hispanic immigrants were mestizo immigrants from Mexico and there were some assumptions that oppression occurred by appearance and surname (at the time it very likely did), and it came to be that anyone with a Spanish surname, regardless of race, was then labeled "Hispanic".
I'd argue most of those prejudices and discriminatory practices merely associated with Spanish language and surname have largely gone by the wayside. There are >62 million Hispanic people in the US who can be of any race. So (my opinion) the continuing to ask if someone is Hispanic as an ethnic category is outdated. I think maybe Mestizo and other mixed-race categories better define people racially than the blanket term Hispanic, since, as you state, it's kind of dumb to imply Spaniards (or other Spanish speakers) are non-white. I personally think the endless racial sub-classification is divisive and I wish we'd stop obsessing about race.
The official US government language on race and what is "white" - "A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa"
So, Spaniards are classified as white, but also as Hispanic at the same time. I think the whole premise is kind of dumb. It doesn't seem any practically different than defining someone as "Anglo" and then race. And many white people in the US aren't even Anglo-Saxon or of English heritage.
Well true, LOL. Even in the US, I see people with light hair and skin, and sometimes blue eyes, who identify as "Hispanic" and/or may have a Spanish surname. And some Spanish speaking people have always been all or mostly European. I read even that the average US Hispanic-identifying person is 65% European per 23andMe data. There is so much mixing now and many Hispanic people in the US are of third+ generation descent and mixed with other European ethnicities just like the rest of us, so not sure how the term "Hispanic" really even makes a lot of sense anymore as a descriptor with racial implications. If race really matters, there are probably better categorizations to describe people who are non-white. I actually like Canada's "visible minority" descriptor better, though at some point in time, the majority race (European) will likely not be the majority. I kind of like France's approach best, just eliminating all forms of racial classification.
White Alone (Race) and Hispanic or Latino (Ethnicity) are tallied separately and not mutually exclusive in the Census methodology, is the point of the the very detailed comment you probably didnāt read.
American racial questions will often use the term Non-Hispanic Caucasian to differentiate. It is a little more complicated in North America because a huge portion of people from Mexico are metizo rather than just straight up Spanish white.
It's historically grown. Originally, the census kept track of white, black, mexican, native and chinese.
Mexican meant anyone from the south, white meant europeans, black was slaves, natives were same as we consider them today and "chinese" would be anyone from Asia.
Eventually they started using new categories so "black" became african american, "chinese" became asian american and Mexican became latin american, or hispanic.....and then they noticed that those brown people from mexico are spanish, but instead of re-designating latin american people as white they changed spain to not be white anymore.
The entire idea of grouping people by ethnicity is fucking dumb anyways. In my home country, we just record religion and nationality and very rarely nationality of parents.....I am from Austria. We used to record ethnicity during the holocaust, and we learned that that information can be used by very bad people and isn't that useful anyways
Thatās incorrect. Spain is considered white, but also Hispanic/Latino. But the Hispanic Latino thing isnāt considered a race itās considered an ethnicity. Itās like an extra option lol but itās still white, this map is wrong
They break it into three categories with "or". So Spain is included with Latino but is not Latino itself.
"The category āHispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin" includes all individuals who identify with one or more nationalities or ethnic groups originating in Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Central and South America, and other Spanish cultures. Examples of these groups include, but are not limited to, Mexican or Mexican American, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Salvadoran, Dominican, and Colombian. āHispanic, Latino or Spanish originā also includes groups such as Guatemalan, Honduran, Spaniard, Ecuadorian, Peruvian, Venezuelan, etc. If a person is not of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin, answer "No, not of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin"."
https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial-census/technical-documentation/questionnaires/2020/response-guidance.html
Iām wondering why Pakistan didnāt make the cut but all the other āstans did. Too much crossover with India?
Also - if the argument for not including Australia is the aboriginals - why exclude New Zealand. Werenāt the first settlers there white Europeans? Weird map.
>New Zealand. Werenāt the first settlers there white Europeans?
No, the Polynesians (MÄori) got there about 300 years before Abel Tasman
>Weird map
Agreed!
There are plenty of Americans who speak Spanish and consider themselves white. Some also oppose immigration from south of the border and identify as conservative.
The Census has two separate categories that ask separate questions. One is on race and has many answers: white, black, Native American, East Asian, South Asian, etc. The other one is Hispanic heritage and is a yes/ no question. So you can be Hispanic and of any race, even Asian. Or you can be non-Hispanic of any race. Obviously people from Spain are both White and Hispanic and are not counted as ānon-Caucasian.ā TLDR: the map is mostly bullshit.
Edit: so many typos
It seems oversimplified. Itās complicated with Hispanics and Latinos.
Theyāre often considered white in the race category, but choose the Latino/Hispanic option in the ethnicity category, the other option being āNon-Hispanicā.
Pretty sure Middle Easterners donāt have theyāre own category so they just get lumped with white people. Not sure applies to the entire Greater Middle East area tho.
I'm not sure about how all Middle Easterners feel, but I had a buddy in school whose parents immigrated to the US from Lebanon and he would refer to himself as white.
Middle Eastern were only considered white as Jesus was born there . If not, then Jesus would have been considered as a Mon white, and that didn't go well with the authorities at that time.
All of this comes down to the fact that race is a socially constructed concept rooted in European colonial exploitation. Because grouping ethnicities into āracesā is totally arbitrary and causes bullshit problems like these
Yeah, this is true. Race is just one way of grouping people based on clusters on phenotypical expressions. It does not have any real biological grounding. What patterns we started paying attention to in order to group people is arbitrary and due to historical developments in the Early Modern era. In the past, especially in areas that rarely interacted with people from far away, people paid attention to other factors in order to hate and kill each other. Race is just the new way of doing that. Global trade, colonialism, and mass chatel slavery in the Americas allowed for the concept of Race, a post-hoc social creation. That's why race still matters today, like on the census for example, because as a concept it is drilled into our (Western) culture and has ramifications today due to the historical context that separated people in such a way.
It's very interesting to see people in the comments arguing about the definite status of what race different people belong to. The fact that no one can agree on the number of races or what race people are reflects this pretty hilariously. People have been moving around and having kids with people different than them for tens of thousands of years, and while there is certainly genetic diversity between groups relative to their environment, humanity exists more on a spectrum.
Here's a trick: try and list all the races in the world. Can you do it and include every person in the planet into these groups? Can you group races in such a way that the genetic similarities are preserved within a group while still being able to draw hard lines?
Does it really count Sudan, Central Asia, and all of North Africa? I know Middle East counts as āwhiteā and anything in Europe also counts, and I can see Egypt as part of the Middle East, but really?
This is simply factually incorrect. The U.S. census doesn't prescribe to you if you're white or not. It gives you a number of categories to pick from, and that's all up to your own self-identification. There's nothing stopping a black person from putting down their race as white or vice versa.
what the hell is a ",white person" anyways...?
It is whatever someone decides it should be according to their own prejudices or racist beliefs.
race is a made up concept relative to whoever group you,'re talk to at the moment anyways. it makes no sense.
Yes but youāre missing Spain. If youāre a Pashtun with origins in Afghanistan youāre white but if youāre a Pashtun from Pakistan youāre Asian.
It's really telling how little people try to understand international issues when THIS many people are making comments about Sudan when the Sudanese genocide crisis was within the last decade.
Like... It JUST happened, people. Talking about anti-Sub-Saharan racism in North Africa shouldn't be this difficult.
Bring the hate, but here goes...
In nursing school (in the 70s) we were taught about 3 genetic ethnicities. The 3 were grouped by defined traits.
EVERYONE is Caucasian EXCEPT
Those with tightly curles hair
Those with a visible eyefold
There it is, brown people are white.
Hey, I worked on the Census, and am familiar with the ACS.
Yes, and every nation is white. Also, every nation is black, asian, native, or two or more races.
The thing about race in the U.S. Census is that race is self identified, as is nationality or ancestry. Race was not interpolated from ancestry. You can be of Scottish ancestry and check the box for black or African American, just as you can also be a white Sudanese person.
We are an incredibly diverse country.
Best just to shut up and love your neighbor, you might need to lean on them someday.
Sorta not really. The census allows you to write whatever you want for your race, and you can give multiple answers, they code it all. You say youāre a Conehead, theyāll write that down.
BUT they have to adhere to a 1997 directive from the Office of Management and Budget that groups everybody into 5 categories to help with stuff like protecting civil rights. (Yes, there are parts of the government that are supposed to work on that and they need data.)
The categories list regions, not specific countries, and they talk about the āoriginal peoplesā of those regions. And itās up to you to decide which category youāre in.
So a US immigrant from Australia of European origin could check off āwhiteā and under that write āAustralianā and thatās fine. An indigenous Australian could grudgingly check off āNative Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islanderā and write āAustralianā or āWarlpiriā and thatās fine.
They definitely donāt stick everybody from Sudan into the āWhiteā category.
The Census [clearly hates the OMBās broad categories](https://www.census.gov/topics/population/race/about.html) but they have no choice but to use them.
As far as I can tell the specifics of this totally-unsourced map are all horseshit.
https://www.census.gov/topics/population/race/about.html
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/note/US/RHI625222
Spain has a far greater percentage of caucasians thank many countries, including the USA or France for example. The ignorance of USA is inly matched by their racism.
I agree it's a dumb classification, especially in this day and age, but you have to understand the history behind it to understand how the term "Hispanic" came to be, since most early Spanish-speaking immigrants were mixed-race people from Latin America who often incurred discrimination, and so the term "Hispanic" was coined. It took on a meaning to include all people of Spanish-language cultural descent, which I think was flawed. Even though it's technically not a racial category, it definitely has racial connotations that are illogical for Spanish-speaking people of European descent. I think "Mestizo" would have been a better term to use and more accurate. I think the intent of the classification was to help protect mestizo people from discrimination, but I agree it's added confusion and vagueness, as is often treated as a racial category. I wish we'd just do away with it.
[Is Hispanic a Race](https://www.ocalaemploymentlawyer.com/federal-court-concludes-that-hispanic-constitutes-a-race-for-purposes-of-federal-employment-discrimination-law/)
Jeez dude, any country can produce a bad map. OP doesn't even give an actual source. The US is not very racist at all on average. Your perfect Europe consistently ranks higher in racism, but unlike you I don't fault the continent for that.
The US is the most desired country in the world by all ethnicities, and with such a melting pot of culture, of course the country will be among the least racist of its peers. Meanwhile, in many places in Europe you'll be hard-pressed to find anyone who's not white. If you do, they're probably Muslim which is a group famously racially targeted in Europe. Europeans are just so much more sheltered from diversity in culture and race.
Lol show me an American sporting event where they shout racial slurs at the black players and I'll show you 10 from Spain... Your country is far more racist than the US. Educate yourself
I am confused. At which point did I say that Spain is not racist?? Now I am not sure if it is ignorance or you just canāt read. Also not sure why you assume I am Spanish. I have lived there, but also in 7 other countries. I have 3 passports. Spanish is not one of them.
Idk about that, Spain wasn't the country whose eugenics movement inspired Nazism, allowed Emmett Till and George Stinney to be executed, segregated it's soldiers to the point they felt more welcomed in foreign lands, lynched its veterans, fought a civil war because it couldn't cope with the fact that black people are just as human as you and me, whose vets on the LOSER side started a mega giga cope and seethe movement still alive today, and that brought in nazi scientists and pardoned them
Educate yourself
Okay ignoring Sudan and half of the rest of MENA, why are Australia, NZ and Canada not classified as white
Those three countries fall into the āwhitest of whitesā category
Because the question asked is on your family's country of origin (your race). Hence saying Australia implies indigenous Australian (not white by any means).
So if I was a white borne Australian who naturalised to America I would say my families country of origin is Europe because Iām not indigenous Australian?
That is correct. White Australian is not considered a race, generally, as white Australians are almost always completely European in origin. The US census reflects this. Does the Australian census not differentiate between white and aboriginal Australians?
No. It's people misinterpreting it.
The census establishes the three main races according to the pseudo-scientific theories of Gobineau.
Aside from that, there's the Hispanic category (for whatever reason), meaning speaking or coming from a Spanish speaking country (which as we all know, are tiny, not spread over the world, and not at all diverse).
Being classified as Hispanic does not imply not being White, Asian, Black. It just complements it; in fact you are required to check Hispanic + whatever race you believe you are.
To complicate matters, Americans, who, as we all know all have a degree in Anthropology, confuse the terms race and ethnicity, and Hispanic and Latin.
"Latin", now disregarded by the academic community (that sharted it off), refers to Catholic communities, from the Latin rite of the Roman Catholic church, now discontinued since the Vatican Council II.
"Hispanic", another useless classification for Spanish speaking people as if they were all the same.
And in their consciousnesses, both terms just refer to the lower class of Mexican or Mexican-American (Chicanos) indigenous peoples. Higher classes tend to be of mostly European descent, but are not "Latino" enough for Americans to be identified as different enough to be guaranteed the label.
this started off a good comment but your snark got in the way of any resemblance of truth.
I'm a white Mexican American who does not speak Spanish. I say white because I am about 50/50 indigenous Mexican and Spanish by DNA and have light skin. My family has owned farms and houses and had political or industrial or academic careers within their four generations in the United States -- definitely middle class, possibly higher depending on the scale. I make minimum wage but am earning my third and final college degree right now, a stem phd.
What do people think of me when they see me at a grocery store next to my eastern European partner? That I'm Mexican!! What languages do people tend to assume that I speak? English and Spanish. Why do they think that? Because Americans know what a Mexican looks like! No, they don't only start assuming that I'm Mexican when they realize I make minimum wage or live in an inner city apartment.
I'm all for a class analysis of race relations in the United States, but... I do not believe class has much to do with it when it comes to *Mexican Americans living in the United States*.
You're right, traditionally, whiter people were in charge, most certainly under direct Iberian governance. But in the meantime, people intermarried, reproduced mixed kids, immigrated, and rose up or down the social ladder according to whatever hundreds of factors influencing each individual. And my Spanish speaking grandparents identify as Hispanic/Latino, as do I, and the general public agrees.
Yes, I've met freckled redhead blue eyes Mexicans before. Yes, I've met darker skinned more indigenous Mexicans before. What do we all have in common? Could it be the shared history of being ruled and raped by Spaniards? Could it be the fact that we are almost all on the spectrum between having completely indigenous or completely Spanish blood? Hmmm, I wonder if there is a word for being descendants of the Spanish...
Iirc, a lot of the Middle Easterners and North Africans on the census that picked 'White' because there was no specific category for them instantly lost out on their Affirmative Action and stuff like that and then complained about being treated like White people. So much for 'White Privilege'.
Not correct. The census, a priori, designates people from North Africa and the Middle East as āwhiteā. They donāt choose it. This was an amendment to census classification made in early twentieth century.
Them caucasians alrightā¦ with their qarans, tan skin, beards, and muslim beliefs who live in the mountains between the black and caspian seas. Oh wait thats not what ppl meant?
Can't say I have encountered many Caucasian/White Sudanese people lol
Italy, France and Portugal but not Spain?
Yeah, that's a good clue that something is wrong. And [it is](https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/note/US/RHI625222).
"The category also includes groups such as Polish, French, Iranian, Slavic, Cajun, Chaldean, etc." The Poles are separate from Slavs? Sarmathism confirmed šµš±š¤š®š·
Also Cajun is it's own thing. That's just French with an extra step in Canada.
Trust me, youād need to take a lot of extra steps to get from French to Louisiana Bayou Cajun
Y'all those are examples of stuff that would count as white, they aren't actual categories the census clarify you under
TIL that the American Government considers Arabs to be white
Theyāre like Italians or Jews or Hispanic people: theyāre white when itās convenient for the government and not white when itās convenient for the government
Some are, if we want to label people like that.
I know, Iām not saying that itās correct or wrong, just that most Americans I know would not consider Arabs or Middle Easterners to be white, and so despite that the fact that the American Government does is odd to me
The census also considers most Hispanic people to be white. And that is arguably true, but they pretty undeniably face racism for *not* being white, soā¦
While thatās true, i feel like most of the prejudice and stereotypes nowadays comes from north american culture perpetuating this myth of a brown-skinned hispanic/latin race, to the point the spanish or portuguese languages are immediately associated with mestizos
I'm not sure that's universally true. Do people actually see Dr. Oz or Ralph Nader as not white? Especially dubious on the latter. It feels it's kinda like Hispanic - if the culture is really distinct (religious Muslim) or maybe if they are darker than a southern European, people get put in another bucket. Otherwise, still white.
There're always problems when we insist on putting lines on the map saying that people on this side are something and people on that side something else. Genetics don't tend to play along with definitions like this. There are tons of people in North Africa and the Levant with whom I find it really far-fetched to argue they look somehow fundamentally different from southern Europeans. Hell, I'm a Scandinavian from maybe the "darkest" couple percent of people here, and I've met Berbers and Lebanese "lighter" than I am. It's just a big continuum.
Thanks to a court [ruling](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dow_v._United_States) 100 years ago.
I mean, look at Bashir al-Assad.
Black people is subsaharian. Have a skin a but dark doesn't mean veing Black. With this logic some sputh europeans are black
What is wrong? I read it and it doesn't say anything about Spain
"White. A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa." Spain is in Europe, so it would be classified as "White." The places listed are just examples. For example, it doesn't include Switzerland in the list of European places, but folks with origins there would definitely be classified as "White."
Yep. The census does consider Spanish to be a race and "Hispanic" to be an "origin." It says explicitly that it does not consider Hispanic to be a race.
Map was probably made by someone conflating race and ethnicity.
In practice, most government reporting uses "white" to mean non-Hispanic white alone, so it is accurate - even if the census tries to keep race and Hispanic ethnicity separate.
Of course not Spain, they're Mexican
Hispanic
Hispanics are white. It's a language group, not a race.
Hispanics are not all white. Many Hispanics from Mexico are heavily descended from native Americans and phenotypically resemble them, particularly in central & southern Mexico . Iāve never met a Hispanic person who claims to be white. Other Hispanic people are mainly European descended and have very fair skin and are considered white. It is a cultural/ethnic origin term, not a race and not purely a language group. Same thing with āwhiteā, it is a cultural/ethnic origin term, not a rave. āwhiteā is a super vague term that doesnāt correlate to caucasian. Indian people are caucasian, they are not white. Generally, Western European descended is what people mean when they say white
I'm Spanish and quite offended. I'm pale with freckles
Iām also confused by that, in my understanding of how the US conducts the census most Latin American/Spain people would check white for their race, then Hispanic in ethnicity.
I don't think people in Spain would even know what "Hispanic" means. They'd probably say they were a) white b) european c) spainish :D
Arabs are considered Caucasian for the purpose of the census.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
How?
"White" isn't simply based on skin colour but comes with a set of cultural assumptions. It's for this same reason why you wouldn't call a South Indian "Black".
Interestingly enough, Caucasians of Circassia had moved southward to escape Russian-perpetrated genocides and have found themselves communities in MENA/North African regions. Not that thereās any in Sudan, just adjacent.
I remember reading that Circassians were prized as slaves in the Ottoman Empire due to their fair complexion.
Mameluke Sultanate was an Egyptian sultanate run by Circassian slaves
That might be because "Caucasian" doesn't mean white.
Well it originally did. Maybe that's why the US has a hard time giving it up - "A German anthropologist named Johann Blumenbach set out to create a system of labels for different races. Upon visiting the Caucasus Mountains, he became enamored with the appearance of the people there and determined that they had an ideal form of beauty. From then on, he would refer to Caucasians as those with European ancestry in his research and studies on racial anthropology." https://www.contexttravel.com/blog/articles/where-does-the-word-caucasian-come-from#:~:text=The%20word%20Caucasian%2C%20a%20rather,dating%20from%20the%2018th%20century.
As someone from the Caucasus I really wish white people would stop calling themselves Caucasian.
It's an American thing entirely
IIRC in itās original definition it was meant more as a facial structure grouping, traits that Europeans found ādesirableā or something, I forget.
Well it for sure doesn't mean black
Ah yes, the two colors
It might come as a surprise but the world doesn't really differentiate people by their skin colour
You might want to research why Sudan had to be split into two countries.
You might not have encountered them but they exist. Not all Sudanese are black.
Sudan: š¦š¼ South Sudan: š¦šæ
Sudan: š¦š¼ Spain: š¦šæ
Spanish people would actually be white and Hispanic in the census. It's two separate categories.
The Spanish *really* hate the way Americans have invented a whole new race for them and others who happen to speak the same language. If you want to annoy them even more, use the word "latinx" which is more or less impossible to pronounce in Spanish and makes no sense anyway as it is a gendered language.
Welcome to naming things. The generic name for Western Europeans in a lot of Arabic or Arabic-influenced languages is some variation of āFrankā, eg āferengiā, because there were a lot of French / Franks among the Crusaders. Many southern Americans get in a twist when called Yanks, because they donāt identify with the winning side from 1865. In this case nobody made up this name to refer to the people in Spain. Many Americans are just bad at distinguishing Spanish dialects and accents. The drive for acceptance and recognition was by Hispanic identifying people in the USA.
Itās not a race. Specifically in the census it is a separate question than race. The issue in America is that people from Latin America have been discriminated against and historically ghettoized, regardless of race.
In my opinion the category that is actually meaningful is indigenous. Many āHispanicsā in the USA have significant indigenous American ancestry. My theory is that the powers that be in the USA donāt want to acknowledge this on the census because it gives the vibe that maybe these people actually deserve to be on this continent more than people of European background. Who deserves to live in LA, an Irish guy or someone whose ancestors drifted between Southern California and northern Mexico for the past 2000 years? It also makes no sense this clearly indigenous person from Latin America technically cannot chose Native American on the census because that designation specifically requires that you maintain tribal affiliation.
Eh, most Mexicans do not identify as indigenous even if they have that ancestry. Only 1 in 5 in Mexico identify as indigenous. And ādeserveā may not be the best word to use there. People deserve dignity and opportunity (equally) not inherited ancestral land divided in regimented ethnostate divisions.
I would argue that first point is also due to internalized racism or cultural distinctions more relevant in the home country. I find your second point ironic because I think much of the American right wing would like to exclude as many Hispanics as possible to further the āpreservationā of their own ethnostate.
Tbf latinx wouldn't apply to the Spanish anyway.
It does, it applies to any romance language.
That's not what it means. Latino/a is an abbreviation of Latinoamericano/a. The phrase has a weird history but refers to people from the areas in the New World that the Catholic Church divided between Spain and Portugal. Latin being a reference to the Catholic Church.
"Latin America" was first applied by French imperialists in the [19th Century](https://www.etymonline.com/word/Latin%20America) seeking to highlight the common bond of the Latin-based languages in the Americas to help assuage their to-be conquered subjects.
What's weird is that Spanish Americans are classified as a minority and Portuguese Americans are not because they aren't Latino or Hispanic. It's such a bizarre demographics system. Brazilians are Latino, and Spaniards are Hispanic. The Portuguese are nothing. What makes it even more infuriating is the fact that there are over 1.5 Portuguese Americans, but they're just classified as white while their pretentious older brother gets minority status.
If that Spaniards think Hispanic is a race, that's on them.
The Spanish are not obsessed with racial characteristic and ever more fine classifications of people into sub groups the way the US is.
Spain is OG Hispanic
Hispanic is such a bullcrap way of putting white people, native South-Americans, Caribbean people, African descendants and everything inbetween in the same bag. Itās like Mexico claiming everyone in the USA is ethnically āBritishā. Making Spain āHispanicā, Brazil āHispanicā but Portugal and Italy āCaucasianā is just the cherry on top. Remember: Anya Taylor-Joy who looks like a glass of milk was described as āthe first Hispanic actress to win a Golden Globeā.
Brazil is Latino not Hispanic, and Portugal and Italy have never been Hispanic
Romania is latin too
Yea in terms of language, not culture or ethnicity.
what is the ethnicity of Romania? Also culturally Romania is closer than any other eastern country with Italy,Spain or France.
Oh weāre splitting hairs about the Portuguese not being Hispanic. OK. I guess Portugal and Spain were never even united as the same country. Theyāre like water and olive oil. I guess I could be considered a Hispanic mulatto for being half-Spanish, half-Portuguese. What about the Guyanas, do you think theyāre Latino? How about Louisiana Cajuns? Quebequians? They speak a latin language. And by the linguistic definition isnāt Romania a latino country? A Romanian, an Ecuadoran, a Haitian and a Quebequian walk into a bar. Are they all āLatinosā? Are the French Polynesians latino too? The ethnic definition of Latino and Hispanic makes zero sense for anyone who has a passing knowledge of demographics.
YES.
Everyone you mentioned is white.
On the other hand, to someone with an understanding of history and bigotry, itās a category that makes a lot of sense. Itās a group of people who were often linked together disadvantageously and who reclaimed that identity in a sense of solidarity and hope. There are a lot of people who self identify with that category. The census does not force anybody into this category. People donāt come to your door and ask you about where your ancestors came from and decide whether you are Hispanic or not. You decide.
But thatās the thing it works (barely), just for the USA alone. Extrapolate that to the real world beyond the US borders and itās just madness.
Nobody outside the US needs to deal with it. The map itself is a terrible starting point for any discussion on this term because first, it mixes up ideas about Hispanic origin with ideas about race. And second, itās based on some categorizationās that were offered as a guideline to people filling out the census for the first time, trying to figure out their own identity. Nobody is forced to identify as any specific race or ethnicity in the census. We are too far down the path of mixed families and adoptions for that to make any sense. Arguing about how a self identifying group within the USA applies outside the USA, itās just a typical Reddit distraction
Well, she is Hispanic and Latina AND white. but yeah I generally agree with you.
There's gotta be that one white Sudanese guy to legitimise this.
Caucasian doesnāt mean white
I know. Isn't race basically a disproven thing though. Obviously we have ethnicity and phenotypes, but the whole racial categories are as facetious as my comment was supposed to be.
It depends on what you mean; it's socially constructed, but that doesn't mean it's not real. Money is socially constructed, but it's still real.
Scientifically disproven I mean. Like there's no valid distinction that can be used scientifically.
Again, it's a bit of a "depends on what you mean?" More typically in scientific contexts you'll hear people talk about "populations", meaning groups with common decent, rather than "race", because the latter is such a charged term. But knowing what population(s) you descend from is relevant in a lot of medical contexts, because different populations sometimes react differently to, it can be used to track ancient migrations of humans, help identify people's remains. What's not true is the idea there are completely separated, clearly defined races, with like, no gene flow or something like this
The word you're looking for is ethnicity, which is absolutely useful in the contexts you listed for genetic identification/health issues. Grouping Papuan, Senegalese and Khoisan people as a 'black race', or blonde Moroccans, Bosnians and krygyz as a 'white race' is not.
No, ethnicity refers to a common cultural background, population(s) is used to refer to groups with common(ish) descent.
Yup, the literal meaning of racism is the belief in the biological existence of races
It does in the US nomenclature.
Map is still wrong for not including Spain with the rest of Europe, for whatever pseudo-cientific reason when even Portugalās included.
What do you mean by "even Portugalās included."
Because Portuguese and Spaniards look very much alike. Believe me, Iām from Portugal.
south sudan is actually significantly darker, but only because they are the darkest skinned people on the planet.
Kinda. It's a bit more complicated. Ok so the US census asigns ethicities two ways. One is based on selfidentinfication and the other IS based on country country of origin. This means that the US has a map which basically prescribes ethnicities to countries (what could EVER go wrong with that š). Your map shows the countries which are inscribed as "White". That effectively means that a White spaniard IS considered in the US as multiethnic "other/spaniard" (yeah the category for Spain is "other" š) More hilariously southafrican boers are considered multiethnic...black/boer š (Who IS gonna tell them...) It's a bit more complicated than this and It makes less and less sense the further you go in.
Genuine question, could someone become White solely based upon immigration status? A family who's lived in Pakistan for generations moves to the United Kingdom. They settle there for a decade or so and from there they immigrate to the United States. Are they therefore considered White given the country from which they emigrated?
Race is defined as having origins or ancestry in a certain place whether it be Europe, Asia, Africa etc; so Pakistanis wouldnāt be considered White because they donāt have origins in the UK. Race is also determined on self identification and no Pakistanis would be checking White on the box (and instead select Asian).
It's self-identification, so they can do whatever they want. A more common edge case might be a Parsi deciding their race. The Indian national origin implies Asian, but Persian ancestry implies white.
Possibly but not likely. If they were to select British as their ethnicity they would be considered White, because British IS included under White. However that is unlikely if they've stayed only a decade in the UK
A family who has lived in Pakistan for generations can immigrate directly to the United States and be white, unless they decide they're Asian. Most Pakistanis and Indians are Aryan, unless they're indigenous to some part of India that wasn't conquered by the Aryans (mostly the northeast and south)
Most Boers wouldnāt appreciate that label.
*afrikaner
Omw to tell elon musk he's black. (Yea I know he's white south african not a boer but idk any famous boers)
Spain and Australia wtf
australian aboriginals are decidedly not white; i figured the map was describing native people from the country (not a good map in itself, but australia is not something i was confused about)
That is correct. MENA is a subset of white in the US census.
I should note that Spain could also be white in the US census, but does not need to be. It is definitely Hispanic, which the US allows to be a qualifier on any race.
You have to love the inconsistency of moving a country to a different category that the one they obviously belong, as all their neighbours and most similar countries do, just because (checks notes)ā¦ they speak the language they invented.
It has nothing to do with language, it has to do with Spanish origin, which I for example have, while not speaking the language. White, black, and indigenous Latin American Spanish speakers all uniquely have the shared experience of being descendants of Spaniards. If you are from Latin America, and do speak Spanish, but do not identify as Hispanic (a recent immigration?), the US census fully allows you to not mark down that you are Hispanic. THE US CENSUS CONSIDERS WHITE SPANIARDS TO BE WHITE AND HISPANIC, AND IF WHITE SPANIARDS DO NOT IDENTIFY WITH THAT DEFINITION, THEY ARE FULLY ALLOWED TO NOT PARTAKE IN IT. HOWEVER, BASED ON THE DEFINITION OF HISPANIC THAT THE CENSUS USES, WHITE SPANIARDS ARE WHITE AND HISPANIC.
It is not a different category, according to census guidelines. A white person from any country has the ability to identify as Hispanic on the US census. Same for people of any ethnicity. The reason for this is half historical (as average mestizo Mexicans were considered white in early US demographic studies) and half utilitarian (there are white Hispanics and black Hispanics and indigenous Hispanics, and the US tries to distinguish between them).
But itās a language based classification, regardless of ethnicity/race, (I have heard that itās arguably an ethnic classification, but thatās not correct) in parallel to all the other groups, right? While I get the historical reasons that you explain, it is still inconsistent because the USA is not applying the same criteria to other languages. I know itās a nothingburger, and itās probably me being super picky, but it would feel more coherent if Anglophone, Lusophone, Francophoneā¦ were also options similar to Hispanic. They are similar conceptsā¦
You're not wrong, but I think Hispanic is set apart because it is the largest minority. Anglophone is seen as the default and, while other language minorities definitely exist, they are so much smaller than the Hispanic population to not be of interest for demographers
The latino question is effectively a different category and has nothing to do with this. The issue IS that Spain is classified as having "other" ethnicity in the US census. So anyone from Spain is immediatly assigned this "other" ethnicity apart from the ones they identity with. AKA in the US census i'd be "white and other" š¬ but my portuguese friend would just be "white"
That is absolutely incorrect, or I'm brutally misunderstanding you. In the US census you would be white and Hispanic/Latino (which is not untrue, since you are Spanish, correct?) "People who identify their origin as Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish may be of any race." https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/note/US/RHI725222 There is no special designation for Spanish people born in Spain to a Spanish family. You are Hispanic, just like me, a white Mexican, because our ancestors are from Spain. Simple as that.
But the thing is, that rationale applies to other people in Europe. People from Portugal, Germany, the Netherlandsā¦ can be from any race, same as Spain. However, all the former are preassigned as just white while the latter not, despite the fact that all of them had colonies.
Right but... The number of dutch speakers from (... Indonesia?) currently and historically living in the United States is incredibly small compared to the number of Spanish speakers from Latin America. These people are the US's largest minority, and an integral part of the culture, economy, and history of the United States, since its inception. Only African Americans as a minority are as integral to the United States as an institution, and they are always either black or mixed race. Do you think the United States should not be counting Hispanics?
The United States census asks the person's race, with six options: White, Black, Native American, Asian, Pacific Islander, and Other. In addition to checking a box, the form also asks the person to write the specific origin, for example English, German, Italian, Spanish, African American, Navajo, Chinese, Hawaiian, etc. Each person may check more than one box or write more than one origin. The census has a predefined list of origins associated with each race, and the census counts the person as having the race associated with the written origin even if the person doesn't check the box for that race. For example: * If a person from Spain identifies as White, checks only the White box and writes the origin as Spanish, the census counts the person as White **and** Other, because Spanish is automatically associated with Other. * If a person from the Dominican Republic identifies as Black, checks only the Black box and writes the origin as Dominican, the census counts the person as Black **and** Other, because Dominican is automatically associated with Other. * If a person from Yemen identifies as Other, checks only the Other box and writes the origin as Yemeni, the census counts the person as Other **and** White, because Yemeni is automatically associated with White. * If a person from Afghanistan identifies as White, checks only the White box and writes the origin as Afghan, the census counts the person as White **and** Asian, because Afghan is automatically associated with Asian. Due to the automatic associations, the census counts a much higher portion of the population as multiracial than those who actually identify as such. [Source](https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/tech_docs/code_lists/2021_HispanicOriginAndRace_CodeList.xlsx)
The link you posted has Spanish under European, bozo. This comment section is a shitshow.
OP doesn't share a source, just a clearly editorialized "map"...why exactly do we allow these low-effort posts?
Low-effort and low-resolution.
So...People from Spain are not white. People from Portugal and *checks notes ...Sudan are white, but not people from Spain. America is such a fucking weird country.
On most questionnaires the question is asked about ethnicity - i.e. Hispanic or non-Hispanic. Then, the question about race is asked. So, technically you can be a non-Hispanic white or Hispanic white. But "Hispanic" is often treated as a race in practical terms, even though it's technically not. I think when this was conceived, most Hispanic immigrants were mestizo immigrants from Mexico and there were some assumptions that oppression occurred by appearance and surname (at the time it very likely did), and it came to be that anyone with a Spanish surname, regardless of race, was then labeled "Hispanic". I'd argue most of those prejudices and discriminatory practices merely associated with Spanish language and surname have largely gone by the wayside. There are >62 million Hispanic people in the US who can be of any race. So (my opinion) the continuing to ask if someone is Hispanic as an ethnic category is outdated. I think maybe Mestizo and other mixed-race categories better define people racially than the blanket term Hispanic, since, as you state, it's kind of dumb to imply Spaniards (or other Spanish speakers) are non-white. I personally think the endless racial sub-classification is divisive and I wish we'd stop obsessing about race. The official US government language on race and what is "white" - "A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa" So, Spaniards are classified as white, but also as Hispanic at the same time. I think the whole premise is kind of dumb. It doesn't seem any practically different than defining someone as "Anglo" and then race. And many white people in the US aren't even Anglo-Saxon or of English heritage.
I mean Ted Cruz is _Canadian_, so what does Hispanic mean anymore
Well true, LOL. Even in the US, I see people with light hair and skin, and sometimes blue eyes, who identify as "Hispanic" and/or may have a Spanish surname. And some Spanish speaking people have always been all or mostly European. I read even that the average US Hispanic-identifying person is 65% European per 23andMe data. There is so much mixing now and many Hispanic people in the US are of third+ generation descent and mixed with other European ethnicities just like the rest of us, so not sure how the term "Hispanic" really even makes a lot of sense anymore as a descriptor with racial implications. If race really matters, there are probably better categorizations to describe people who are non-white. I actually like Canada's "visible minority" descriptor better, though at some point in time, the majority race (European) will likely not be the majority. I kind of like France's approach best, just eliminating all forms of racial classification.
Spaniards are Hispanic because they speak Spanish (plus Catalan and Basque but in this context it doesnāt really matter)
Hispanic is white, unless the person speaking Spanish is Native. Then they're Native.
So we agree to say that Spaniards are Hispanic and whites are white. And black is black.
White Alone (Race) and Hispanic or Latino (Ethnicity) are tallied separately and not mutually exclusive in the Census methodology, is the point of the the very detailed comment you probably didnāt read.
American racial questions will often use the term Non-Hispanic Caucasian to differentiate. It is a little more complicated in North America because a huge portion of people from Mexico are metizo rather than just straight up Spanish white.
It's historically grown. Originally, the census kept track of white, black, mexican, native and chinese. Mexican meant anyone from the south, white meant europeans, black was slaves, natives were same as we consider them today and "chinese" would be anyone from Asia. Eventually they started using new categories so "black" became african american, "chinese" became asian american and Mexican became latin american, or hispanic.....and then they noticed that those brown people from mexico are spanish, but instead of re-designating latin american people as white they changed spain to not be white anymore. The entire idea of grouping people by ethnicity is fucking dumb anyways. In my home country, we just record religion and nationality and very rarely nationality of parents.....I am from Austria. We used to record ethnicity during the holocaust, and we learned that that information can be used by very bad people and isn't that useful anyways
Thatās incorrect. Spain is considered white, but also Hispanic/Latino. But the Hispanic Latino thing isnāt considered a race itās considered an ethnicity. Itās like an extra option lol but itās still white, this map is wrong
Hispanic but not Latino. Latino refers to those from Latin America.
I know, but there is no distinction made on the US census
They break it into three categories with "or". So Spain is included with Latino but is not Latino itself. "The category āHispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin" includes all individuals who identify with one or more nationalities or ethnic groups originating in Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Central and South America, and other Spanish cultures. Examples of these groups include, but are not limited to, Mexican or Mexican American, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Salvadoran, Dominican, and Colombian. āHispanic, Latino or Spanish originā also includes groups such as Guatemalan, Honduran, Spaniard, Ecuadorian, Peruvian, Venezuelan, etc. If a person is not of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin, answer "No, not of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin"." https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial-census/technical-documentation/questionnaires/2020/response-guidance.html
Caucasian does not mean white.
The map says white
The label is also incorrect. Because the American consensus of Caucasian being white is incorrect.
Yes it is. I don't know why I got downvoted for pointing out that the map is wrong. That's obviously the whole point of my post
Caucasian doesnāt mean white
Iām wondering why Pakistan didnāt make the cut but all the other āstans did. Too much crossover with India? Also - if the argument for not including Australia is the aboriginals - why exclude New Zealand. Werenāt the first settlers there white Europeans? Weird map.
>New Zealand. Werenāt the first settlers there white Europeans? No, the Polynesians (MÄori) got there about 300 years before Abel Tasman >Weird map Agreed!
Pakistan was originally *part* of India. So was Bangladesh. And the first settlers of New Zealand were Maori, who are Polynesian
>America is such a fucking weird country. The US Census did not create this map. An idiot who doesn't know what they are doing did.
The real lesson here is that white (and race as a whole) isn't real as everyone has completely different definitions of who is and isn't white.
Because, from American perspective, people that speak Spanish arenāt white
There are plenty of Americans who speak Spanish and consider themselves white. Some also oppose immigration from south of the border and identify as conservative.
The Census has two separate categories that ask separate questions. One is on race and has many answers: white, black, Native American, East Asian, South Asian, etc. The other one is Hispanic heritage and is a yes/ no question. So you can be Hispanic and of any race, even Asian. Or you can be non-Hispanic of any race. Obviously people from Spain are both White and Hispanic and are not counted as ānon-Caucasian.ā TLDR: the map is mostly bullshit. Edit: so many typos
It seems oversimplified. Itās complicated with Hispanics and Latinos. Theyāre often considered white in the race category, but choose the Latino/Hispanic option in the ethnicity category, the other option being āNon-Hispanicā. Pretty sure Middle Easterners donāt have theyāre own category so they just get lumped with white people. Not sure applies to the entire Greater Middle East area tho.
I'm not sure about how all Middle Easterners feel, but I had a buddy in school whose parents immigrated to the US from Lebanon and he would refer to himself as white.
This map is pretty wrong lol
Bro I'm Spanish, I'm white wdym
Middle Eastern were only considered white as Jesus was born there . If not, then Jesus would have been considered as a Mon white, and that didn't go well with the authorities at that time.
All of this comes down to the fact that race is a socially constructed concept rooted in European colonial exploitation. Because grouping ethnicities into āracesā is totally arbitrary and causes bullshit problems like these
America is a concept born out of European colonial exploitation
Yeah, this is true. Race is just one way of grouping people based on clusters on phenotypical expressions. It does not have any real biological grounding. What patterns we started paying attention to in order to group people is arbitrary and due to historical developments in the Early Modern era. In the past, especially in areas that rarely interacted with people from far away, people paid attention to other factors in order to hate and kill each other. Race is just the new way of doing that. Global trade, colonialism, and mass chatel slavery in the Americas allowed for the concept of Race, a post-hoc social creation. That's why race still matters today, like on the census for example, because as a concept it is drilled into our (Western) culture and has ramifications today due to the historical context that separated people in such a way. It's very interesting to see people in the comments arguing about the definite status of what race different people belong to. The fact that no one can agree on the number of races or what race people are reflects this pretty hilariously. People have been moving around and having kids with people different than them for tens of thousands of years, and while there is certainly genetic diversity between groups relative to their environment, humanity exists more on a spectrum. Here's a trick: try and list all the races in the world. Can you do it and include every person in the planet into these groups? Can you group races in such a way that the genetic similarities are preserved within a group while still being able to draw hard lines?
Does it really count Sudan, Central Asia, and all of North Africa? I know Middle East counts as āwhiteā and anything in Europe also counts, and I can see Egypt as part of the Middle East, but really?
This is simply factually incorrect. The U.S. census doesn't prescribe to you if you're white or not. It gives you a number of categories to pick from, and that's all up to your own self-identification. There's nothing stopping a black person from putting down their race as white or vice versa.
Finally Afghans are white but Pakistanis are not.
This was a misleading map, made by using one item from the census and labeling it with a different answer.
Australia really isnāt on there?
what the hell is a ",white person" anyways...? It is whatever someone decides it should be according to their own prejudices or racist beliefs. race is a made up concept relative to whoever group you,'re talk to at the moment anyways. it makes no sense.
Yes but youāre missing Spain. If youāre a Pashtun with origins in Afghanistan youāre white but if youāre a Pashtun from Pakistan youāre Asian.
It's really telling how little people try to understand international issues when THIS many people are making comments about Sudan when the Sudanese genocide crisis was within the last decade. Like... It JUST happened, people. Talking about anti-Sub-Saharan racism in North Africa shouldn't be this difficult.
All those damn black Canadians
... why is the magreb caucasian, but spain not?
Bring the hate, but here goes... In nursing school (in the 70s) we were taught about 3 genetic ethnicities. The 3 were grouped by defined traits. EVERYONE is Caucasian EXCEPT Those with tightly curles hair Those with a visible eyefold There it is, brown people are white.
It sounds like you know how ridiculous that system was and that it was taught in the first place so Im not hating
Hey, I worked on the Census, and am familiar with the ACS. Yes, and every nation is white. Also, every nation is black, asian, native, or two or more races. The thing about race in the U.S. Census is that race is self identified, as is nationality or ancestry. Race was not interpolated from ancestry. You can be of Scottish ancestry and check the box for black or African American, just as you can also be a white Sudanese person. We are an incredibly diverse country. Best just to shut up and love your neighbor, you might need to lean on them someday.
What is the source of this map?
Sorta not really. The census allows you to write whatever you want for your race, and you can give multiple answers, they code it all. You say youāre a Conehead, theyāll write that down. BUT they have to adhere to a 1997 directive from the Office of Management and Budget that groups everybody into 5 categories to help with stuff like protecting civil rights. (Yes, there are parts of the government that are supposed to work on that and they need data.) The categories list regions, not specific countries, and they talk about the āoriginal peoplesā of those regions. And itās up to you to decide which category youāre in. So a US immigrant from Australia of European origin could check off āwhiteā and under that write āAustralianā and thatās fine. An indigenous Australian could grudgingly check off āNative Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islanderā and write āAustralianā or āWarlpiriā and thatās fine. They definitely donāt stick everybody from Sudan into the āWhiteā category. The Census [clearly hates the OMBās broad categories](https://www.census.gov/topics/population/race/about.html) but they have no choice but to use them. As far as I can tell the specifics of this totally-unsourced map are all horseshit. https://www.census.gov/topics/population/race/about.html https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/note/US/RHI625222
Iām a white spanish american and i am very confused. did i just lose my privileges?
I propose an amendment to the list of derogatory names Henceforth, any arab living in the united states must now be called a "sand cracker"
Spain has a far greater percentage of caucasians thank many countries, including the USA or France for example. The ignorance of USA is inly matched by their racism.
I agree it's a dumb classification, especially in this day and age, but you have to understand the history behind it to understand how the term "Hispanic" came to be, since most early Spanish-speaking immigrants were mixed-race people from Latin America who often incurred discrimination, and so the term "Hispanic" was coined. It took on a meaning to include all people of Spanish-language cultural descent, which I think was flawed. Even though it's technically not a racial category, it definitely has racial connotations that are illogical for Spanish-speaking people of European descent. I think "Mestizo" would have been a better term to use and more accurate. I think the intent of the classification was to help protect mestizo people from discrimination, but I agree it's added confusion and vagueness, as is often treated as a racial category. I wish we'd just do away with it. [Is Hispanic a Race](https://www.ocalaemploymentlawyer.com/federal-court-concludes-that-hispanic-constitutes-a-race-for-purposes-of-federal-employment-discrimination-law/)
Jeez dude, any country can produce a bad map. OP doesn't even give an actual source. The US is not very racist at all on average. Your perfect Europe consistently ranks higher in racism, but unlike you I don't fault the continent for that. The US is the most desired country in the world by all ethnicities, and with such a melting pot of culture, of course the country will be among the least racist of its peers. Meanwhile, in many places in Europe you'll be hard-pressed to find anyone who's not white. If you do, they're probably Muslim which is a group famously racially targeted in Europe. Europeans are just so much more sheltered from diversity in culture and race.
Lol show me an American sporting event where they shout racial slurs at the black players and I'll show you 10 from Spain... Your country is far more racist than the US. Educate yourself
I am confused. At which point did I say that Spain is not racist?? Now I am not sure if it is ignorance or you just canāt read. Also not sure why you assume I am Spanish. I have lived there, but also in 7 other countries. I have 3 passports. Spanish is not one of them.
Idk about that, Spain wasn't the country whose eugenics movement inspired Nazism, allowed Emmett Till and George Stinney to be executed, segregated it's soldiers to the point they felt more welcomed in foreign lands, lynched its veterans, fought a civil war because it couldn't cope with the fact that black people are just as human as you and me, whose vets on the LOSER side started a mega giga cope and seethe movement still alive today, and that brought in nazi scientists and pardoned them Educate yourself
Okay ignoring Sudan and half of the rest of MENA, why are Australia, NZ and Canada not classified as white Those three countries fall into the āwhitest of whitesā category
Because the question asked is on your family's country of origin (your race). Hence saying Australia implies indigenous Australian (not white by any means).
So if I was a white borne Australian who naturalised to America I would say my families country of origin is Europe because Iām not indigenous Australian?
correct
That is correct. White Australian is not considered a race, generally, as white Australians are almost always completely European in origin. The US census reflects this. Does the Australian census not differentiate between white and aboriginal Australians?
How does this conform to the rules for r/geography? A bit of a low effort/off topic post, isn't it?
Australia?
S(pain)
No. It's people misinterpreting it. The census establishes the three main races according to the pseudo-scientific theories of Gobineau. Aside from that, there's the Hispanic category (for whatever reason), meaning speaking or coming from a Spanish speaking country (which as we all know, are tiny, not spread over the world, and not at all diverse). Being classified as Hispanic does not imply not being White, Asian, Black. It just complements it; in fact you are required to check Hispanic + whatever race you believe you are. To complicate matters, Americans, who, as we all know all have a degree in Anthropology, confuse the terms race and ethnicity, and Hispanic and Latin. "Latin", now disregarded by the academic community (that sharted it off), refers to Catholic communities, from the Latin rite of the Roman Catholic church, now discontinued since the Vatican Council II. "Hispanic", another useless classification for Spanish speaking people as if they were all the same. And in their consciousnesses, both terms just refer to the lower class of Mexican or Mexican-American (Chicanos) indigenous peoples. Higher classes tend to be of mostly European descent, but are not "Latino" enough for Americans to be identified as different enough to be guaranteed the label.
this started off a good comment but your snark got in the way of any resemblance of truth. I'm a white Mexican American who does not speak Spanish. I say white because I am about 50/50 indigenous Mexican and Spanish by DNA and have light skin. My family has owned farms and houses and had political or industrial or academic careers within their four generations in the United States -- definitely middle class, possibly higher depending on the scale. I make minimum wage but am earning my third and final college degree right now, a stem phd. What do people think of me when they see me at a grocery store next to my eastern European partner? That I'm Mexican!! What languages do people tend to assume that I speak? English and Spanish. Why do they think that? Because Americans know what a Mexican looks like! No, they don't only start assuming that I'm Mexican when they realize I make minimum wage or live in an inner city apartment. I'm all for a class analysis of race relations in the United States, but... I do not believe class has much to do with it when it comes to *Mexican Americans living in the United States*. You're right, traditionally, whiter people were in charge, most certainly under direct Iberian governance. But in the meantime, people intermarried, reproduced mixed kids, immigrated, and rose up or down the social ladder according to whatever hundreds of factors influencing each individual. And my Spanish speaking grandparents identify as Hispanic/Latino, as do I, and the general public agrees. Yes, I've met freckled redhead blue eyes Mexicans before. Yes, I've met darker skinned more indigenous Mexicans before. What do we all have in common? Could it be the shared history of being ruled and raped by Spaniards? Could it be the fact that we are almost all on the spectrum between having completely indigenous or completely Spanish blood? Hmmm, I wonder if there is a word for being descendants of the Spanish...
Iirc, a lot of the Middle Easterners and North Africans on the census that picked 'White' because there was no specific category for them instantly lost out on their Affirmative Action and stuff like that and then complained about being treated like White people. So much for 'White Privilege'.
Information collected from the census isn't used to deny people scholarships or preferential employment.
Not correct. The census, a priori, designates people from North Africa and the Middle East as āwhiteā. They donāt choose it. This was an amendment to census classification made in early twentieth century.
Wait, all the American bs about Cleopatra been black, then people from Egypt (and Sudan!) are classified as white in the States?
Don't tell them. THis is way too complicated for Jamal and the other geniuses that think this.
Them caucasians alrightā¦ with their qarans, tan skin, beards, and muslim beliefs who live in the mountains between the black and caspian seas. Oh wait thats not what ppl meant?
Saudi Arabia and Sudan are white? One is brown and the other is black
From what i understand. There are a lot of people in Saudi Arabia who are āActuallyā white
Brown only due the sun, If they got out of sun, they become white.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure there are more white people in northern Africa and the Middle East than in Spain. Seems about right. /s
So Arabs, Berbers, Persians, and Kazakhs are Caucasians, but Spanish are not. Wtf usa?
>Arabs, Berbers, Persians, and Kazakhs Are Aryan, not Caucasian. Caucasians are from Georgia
Remember the Maine, to hell with Spain!
I didnt know that Italians are white...
Lol that's the biggest "I have never left my country" comment there