3 ms·

Minority Births Outnumbered Whites for the First Time

5 points by kumarski 14y ago

tokenadult 14y ago
The lede paragraph says, "The United States has reached a historic tipping point -- with Latino, Asian, mixed race and African American births constituting a majority of births for the first time, theU.S. Census Bureau reported Thursday." But in the everyday sense of "white," most Latino people are "white," because the definition of Hispanic/Latino ethnicity used by the federal government http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-04.pdf http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-04.pdf "Definition of Hispanic or Latino Origin Used in the 2010 Census "'Hispanic or Latino' refers to a person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin regardless of race." makes clear that a great variety of people of varying ancestry or "heritage" or "country of birth" can categorize themselves as Hispanic. Someone self-designating has the choice to indicate Hispanic ethnicity, by that definition, and to indicate white "race" after indicating Hispanic ethnicity. A detailed FAQ on how United States designations of "race" and "ethnicity" interact with college and university admission policies in the United States http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1366406-race-college-admission-faq-discussion-10-a.html http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/13664... goes into much more detail on that controversial issue.
- rdl 14y ago
  It seems pretty clear that they were using the economic/political privilege form of minority -- which includes most hispanic people except the very top echelon of mostly-Spanish people in Latin America. The South American largely-Indian guy who came across the border and now works in a chicken processing plant in the Southeast or a farm in the West is not part of the traditional white European power structure in the US, which until now was a majority. (I am pretty convinced racial issues in the US will be a lot less important over the next 30 years, and outright economic and social class will predominate. I have much more in common personally with an Indian IIT grad H1B in the Bay Area (or a startup founder) than I do with an nth-generation white guy from my hometown in Pennsylvania working at a Wawa.)

5 points by kumarski 14y ago

The lede paragraph says, "The United States has reached a historic tipping point -- with Latino, Asian, mixed race and African American births constituting a majority of births for the first time, theU.S. Census Bureau reported Thursday." But in the everyday sense of "white," most Latino people are "white," because the definition of Hispanic/Latino ethnicity used by the federal government http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-04.pdf http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-04.pdf "Definition of Hispanic or Latino Origin Used in the 2010 Census "'Hispanic or Latino' refers to a person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin regardless of race." makes clear that a great variety of people of varying ancestry or "heritage" or "country of birth" can categorize themselves as Hispanic. Someone self-designating has the choice to indicate Hispanic ethnicity, by that definition, and to indicate white "race" after indicating Hispanic ethnicity. A detailed FAQ on how United States designations of "race" and "ethnicity" interact with college and university admission policies in the United States http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1366406-race-college-admission-faq-discussion-10-a.html http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/13664... goes into much more detail on that controversial issue.

rdl 14y ago
It seems pretty clear that they were using the economic/political privilege form of minority -- which includes most hispanic people except the very top echelon of mostly-Spanish people in Latin America. The South American largely-Indian guy who came across the border and now works in a chicken processing plant in the Southeast or a farm in the West is not part of the traditional white European power structure in the US, which until now was a majority. (I am pretty convinced racial issues in the US will be a lot less important over the next 30 years, and outright economic and social class will predominate. I have much more in common personally with an Indian IIT grad H1B in the Bay Area (or a startup founder) than I do with an nth-generation white guy from my hometown in Pennsylvania working at a Wawa.)