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8B Daily News – Wednesday, February 1, 2012 Many resist census race labels WASHINGTON (AP) — When the 2010 census asked people to classify themselves by race, more than 21.7 mil- lion — at least 1 in 14 — went beyond the standard labels and wrote in such terms as ''Arab,'' ''Haitian,'' ''Mexican'' and ''multiracial.'' The unpublished data, the broadest tally to date of such write-in responses, are a sign of a diversifying America that's wrestling with changing notions of race. The figures show most of the write-in respondents are multiracial Americans or Hispanics, many of whom don't believe they fit within the four government-defined cate- gories of race: white, black, Asian/Pacific Islander or Amer- ican Indian/Alaska Native. Because Hispanic is defined as an ethnicity and not a race, some 18 million Latinos used the ''some other race'' category to establish a Hispanic racial identity. ''I have my Mexican experience, my white experience but I also have a third identity if you will that transcends the two, a mixed experience,'' said Thomas Lopez, 39, a write- in respondent from Los Angeles. ''For some multiracial Americans, it is not simply being two things, but an under- standing and appreciation of what it means to be mixed.'' Lopez, 39, the son of a Mexican-American father and a German-Polish mother, has been checking multiple race Counseling Center Giving Families Hope! Did you think we were just for children? • Individual & Family Counseling • Couple/Relationship Issues • Anger • Depression • Anxiety • Emotional Trauma • Family Relationships • Parenting Call our office for more info. 529-9454 Red Bluff 590 Antelope Blvd. Suite B-30 Corning Counseling Center 275 Solano Street #2 boxes since the Census Bureau first offered the option in 2000. Marking off the categories of Hispanic-Mexican eth- nicity, ''other'' Hispanic ethnicity and a non-Hispanic white race, Lopez opted in 2010 to go even further. He checked ''some other race'' and scribbled in a response: ''multira- cial.'' More than three million write-ins came from white and black Americans who appear to have found the standard race categories insufficient. They include Arabs, Iranians and Middle Easterners, who don't fully view themselves as ''white'' and have lobbied in the past to be a separate race category. They are also Italians, Germans, Haitians and Jamaicans who consider ancestry a core part of who they are. Roughly half a million black Americans — between 1 and 2 percent of their total population — wrote in answers to signify their preferred term for black. Among them: African-American, Afro-American, African, Negro, mulat- to, brown and coffee. More than 36,000 described them- selves as ''Negro'' in whole or in part. The term, which was listed as an example on the 2010 census form, drew criticism from some black groups for being outdated and insensitive. Lopez, a mechanical engineer who helps run a multira- cial awareness group, said he believes the government Hope for the End Bible Prophecy Seminars Tuesday-Wednesday-Friday-Saturday Sunday Evenings 7:00-8:00pm Wednesday's Topic "Revelation's 1,000 Years" Please Join Us Seventh-day Adventist Church 720 South Jackson St. Red Bluff Showing Live Via Satellite C & C PROPERTIES should provide a wider range of choices on survey forms. ''Right now there's a significant segment of the population who feel that the boxes do not adequately represent them,'' he said. While the issue of racial identity can be deeply individ- ual, it is also highly political: census data are used to enforce anti-discrimination laws, to distribute more than $400 billion in federal aid for roads, schools and health care, and to draw political districts based in part on a community's racial makeup. Over the past decade, the number of people identi- fying as ''some other race'' jumped by 3.7 million, or 24 per- cent. Experts say an increase in the write-in responses could signify limitations to the form and potentially skew govern- ment counts. ''It's a continual problem to measure such a personal con- cept using a check box,'' said Carolyn Liebler, a sociology professor at the University of Minnesota who specializes in demography, identity and race. ''The world is changing, and more people today feel free to identify themselves however they want — whether it's black-white, biracial, Scottish- Nigerian or American. It can create challenges whenever a set of people feel the boxes don't fit them.'' In an interview, Census Bureau officials said they have been looking at ways to improve responses to the race ques- tion based on focus group discussions during the 2010 cen- sus. The research, some of which is scheduled to be released later this year, examines whether to include new write-in lines for whites and blacks who wish to specify ancestry or nationality; whether to drop use of the word ''Negro'' from the census form as antiquated; and whether to possibly treat Hispanics as a mutually exclusive group to the four main race categories. ''Part of our research efforts moving forward is to exam- ine what is happening when you see more people writing in responses,'' said Nicholas Jones, chief of the Census Bureau's racial statistics branch. 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