{"id":6662,"date":"2018-03-01T07:00:41","date_gmt":"2018-03-01T12:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/?p=6662"},"modified":"2018-02-28T12:25:40","modified_gmt":"2018-02-28T17:25:40","slug":"how-census-numbers-can-stoke-immigration-fears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/2018\/03\/01\/how-census-numbers-can-stoke-immigration-fears\/","title":{"rendered":"Misleading Census Counts May Stoke Immigration Fears"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Racial Dot Map for Los Angeles based on 2010 Census. Photo by Eric Fischer, Flickr CC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The United States Census is a trusted source for population data.\u00a0But, like all large-scale survey projects, the census must make decisions about how to define and analyze elements for categorizing data, like racial group.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>In a <\/span>recent article<\/span><\/a> in <\/span>The Washington Post<\/span><\/i>, sociologist <\/span>Richard Alba<\/span><\/a> argues that the census over-estimates counts of racial and ethnic minorities, a move that can seriously affect<\/span>\u00a0politics and policies in the United States. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Alba particularly has a problem with how the census counts mixed-race youth. For young people from a mixed Hispanic and White background, the census only counts them as Hispanic, not as both White and Hispanic —\u00a0<\/span>similar to the age-old idea of the \u201c<\/span>one-drop rule<\/span><\/a>\u201d instituted for Black people in the United States. <\/span>This way of counting leads to an over-estimate of Hispanics in the United States, and this may fuel White fears about becoming a minority in the near future. <\/span><\/p>\n

Alba points out that, \u201cdistorted census data can result in inaccurate statements of \u2018fact\u2019 and misleading projections for the future.\u201d Take, for example, <\/span>President Trump\u2019s desire to limit immigration from African countries and encourage immigration from European countries like Norway. Alba argues that the lack of fundamental changes to the <\/span>2020 census will only continue to fuel misperceptions about racial and ethnic change in the United States:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cCensus statistics will continue to roil the public discussion of diversity, by exaggerating white decline and the imminence of a majority-minority United States. Political figures and pundits who oppose immigration and diversity could exploit that, peddling an alarmist narrative that doesn\u2019t fit with <\/span>the long-standing reality of mixing<\/span><\/a> between immigrant and established Americans.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The United States Census is a trusted source for population data.\u00a0But, like all large-scale survey projects, the census must make decisions about how to define and analyze elements for categorizing data, like racial group.\u00a0\u00a0In a recent article in The Washington Post, sociologist Richard Alba argues that the census over-estimates counts of racial and ethnic minorities, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2020,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,85,14],"tags":[657,123,1020,89,39110,39115,39111,7556],"class_list":["post-6662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inequality","category-politics","category-race","tag-census","tag-ethnicity","tag-hispanic","tag-immigration","tag-inequality","tag-politics","tag-race","tag-us-census"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2020"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6662"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6662\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6685,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6662\/revisions\/6685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}