Identity: Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Sexuality - Human Geography: People, Place and Culture - page 149

and the public at large had to redefi ne what constituted
“white” so that people with olive-colored skin from the
Mediterranean would count as “white.”
As a result of immigration and differences in fertility
rates, the United States is becoming increasingly “non-
white.” At the same time, how Americans defi ne “race”
is changing. Before 2000, the United States Census clas-
sifi ed “Hispanic” as a race. This categorization was cho-
sen because people in Latin America, like North America,
represent different races. Before the 2000 census a white
person from Venezuela, a black person from Brazil, and
a native person from Bolivia were all classifi ed as “His-
panic.” This example demonstrates the arbitrary nature of
racial and ethnic classifi cations. In this example, coming
from Latin America “trumped” all other identities and the
person was defi ned as “Hispanic.” Hispanic, then, is not a
race. It is better defi ned as an ethnicity. However, the word
“Hispanic” means coming from a country where Spanish
is the predominant language, including Spain, Mexico,

and many countries in Central and South America and the
Caribbean. In our example above, the black person from
Brazil who was classifi ed as “Hispanic” should not have
been under this defi nition. The predominant language in
Brazil is Portuguese, not Spanish.
In 2000, the United States Census categorized “His-
panic” as an ethnicity rather than a race. In the boxes pro-
vided by the United States Census Bureau, a person can
now be “White, non-Hispanic,” “White, Hispanic,” “Black,
non-Hispanic,” “Black, Hispanic,” and so forth (Table 5.1).
In 2010, the United States Census recognized that
“Hispanic” excludes people from Latin America who are
not native Spanish speakers. The Census also recognized
that some people, including United States Supreme Court
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, prefer the term “Latina” or
“Latino” to “Hispanic.” In 2010, the United States Cen-
sus Bureau described the Hispanic ethnicity as “Hispanic,
Latino, or Spanish origin,” and continued to list Hispanic
as an ethnicity and not a race.

TABLE 5.1
Population of the United States by Race, 2010. In 2000 and in 2010, the United
States Census Bureau allowed Americans to categorize themselves as one race or more than
one race.

80

72.4%

60

40

20

12.6%

6.2%

5.0%

2.9%

0.9%

0

White Black American

Indian

Asian &
Pacific
Islander

Other
Race

Two or
More
Races

Race

Data from : United States Census Bureau, 2010.