Mixed Race Studies

For some, question #9 is number one

Nguoi Viet 2 Online
2010-04-02

Denise L. Poon
LASpot.Us

When she fills out her 2010 Census form, Mei-Ling Malone is looking forward to answering Question #9 “the race question.” She’s adamant about documenting her multiracial background.

Malone, who studied multiracial politics at UC Irvine and is now pursuing a doctorate at UCLA, has an African American father and a Taiwanese mother. For Malone, 26, this is her first opportunity to respond to a Census and possibly provide a different answer to the race question than what her parents may have noted for her 10 years ago.

“President Obama is called our first black president, yet his mother was white,” she said. “For a majority of people who are black and multiracial, we are physically viewed as black, and treated, or discriminated as such. I’m glad that when I indicate I’m multiracial, I’m also counted as black.”

On 2010 Census forms, respondents have the option to self-identify more than one race. Ten years ago, when, for the first time, respondents had options to self-identify as more than one race, nearly 7 million people (roughly 2.4 percent of the respondents) indicated such…

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Count Yourself In California: The Census on Multiracial ID’s

Spot.Us
2010-03-18

Denise L. Poon

When she fills out her 2010 Census form this week, Mei-Ling Malone is looking forward to answering Question #9 ― “the race question.” She’s adamant about documenting her multiracial background. 

Malone, who studied multiracial politics at UC [University of California] Irvine and is now pursuing a doctorate at UCLA, has an African American father and a Taiwanese mother. For Malone, 26, this is her first opportunity to respond to a Census and possibly provide a different answer to the race question than what her parents may have noted for her 10 years ago.

“President Obama is called our first black president, yet his mother was white,” she said. “For a majority of people who are black and multiracial, we are physically viewed as black, and treated, or discriminated as such. I’m glad that when I indicate I’m multiracial, I’m also counted as black.”…

…The actual data collection process works as follows: The Census Bureau first takes responses from 2010 Census forms and scans and captures the answers. Then, this information is turned into electronic text. For Question #9, an “auto coder” ― a computer program that classifies and tabulates write-in information ― then tabulates the data into different multiracial combinations of the initial race groups.

The five major race categories, as defined by the OMB, plus the “Some Other Race” category, can be put together in 57 possible unique combinations of two, three, four, five or six races. When this information is added to data of the six single-race groups, the Census Bureau will have 63 different tabulated categories…

“For those who may think that the option to identify with more than one race is trivial, they are mistaken,” said Christopher Parker, a professor of political science at the University of Washington. “Marking more than one box can affect both the enforcement of civil rights and inform the political behavior of those who choose more than one racial category with which to identify.”…

Read the entire article here.