美国国家公共电台 NPR How The U.S. Defines Race And Ethnicity May Change Under Trump

 

ELISE HU, HOST:

Some major changes may be coming to how the U.S. government collects data about who we are. The Trump¹ administration is looking at proposals to ask about race and ethnicity in a radical³ new way on the census⁴ and in other surveys. A decision is expected by December, and that timing⁵ is raising concerns among some immigrants and communities of color. NPR's Hansi Lo Wang has our report.

HANSI LO WANG, BYLINE⁶: Once a decade, the U.S. government asks us to fit our racial and ethnic² identities into a box for the census.

Do you remember what box you checked?

JENNIFER BROWN: I don't feel mixed, so I always fill out white, Caucasian.

FRANKIE WYCHE: I put down Negro.

ANGELIQUE METIVIER: I identify as both black and white.

WANG: That was Jennifer Brown from the Bronx, Frankie Wyche of Brooklyn and Angelique Metivier of Meriden, Conn. Metivier says she's been checking off two boxes - both black and white - ever since the Census Bureau first allowed it back in 2000. But if she had it her way, she'd checked off even more boxes to reflect her ethnic identities.

METIVIER: What about the fact that my family is also French Canadian, Portuguese⁷, you know? If we're going to talk about it, let's talk about the cultural and the ethnic aspects that we have instead of just color.

WANG: That's a change that may be coming with the 2020 census and other surveys that follow standards set by the White House for how federal agencies collect race and ethnicity data. Those rules say that whenever people are asked to self-report, they must be presented with two questions. First, are you of Hispanic or Latino origin? Then, what is your race?

TOMAS JIMENEZ: People were pretty secure in how they filled out the Hispanic question.

WANG: Tomas Jimenez, a sociologist⁸ at Stanford University, has studied how Latinos have filled out the census.

JIMENEZ: But when they got down to the race question and there's this set of options that lay out other ethnic groups and they don't see their own, they're just more or less confused.

WANG: Those options for a race on the last census back in 2010 ranged from broad racial groups like white and African-American to ethnic groups like Filipino and Samoan. Many Latinos checked off some other race. In fact that was the third largest racial group in 2000 and 2010. So the Census Bureau has recommended combining the two questions into one with Hispanic or Latino as an option for both race and ethnicity in 2020. But that proposal has raised a question about Hispanic people who in the past have checked off white for their race. Will they keep doing so if Hispanic is categorized as both a race and an ethnicity?

ANN MORNING: That's going to basically chip away in some sense at the official counts of the white population. And that would fuel some of the anxieties that are behind the white supremacist movement.

WANG: Ann Morning is a sociologist at New York University who advises the Census Bureau on race and ethnicity issues. She points to the bureau's research that suggests combining the Hispanic origin and race questions could lead to a smaller white count in 2020. There is another group that for the most part has identified as white on the census but may break away in 2020 if the White House approves a separate proposal.

HELEN SAMHAN: Some of us identify as white. Some of us identify as brown, black.

WANG: Helen Samhan is a co-founder of the Arab-American Institute. And since the early 1990s, she has been campaigning for a new category for people of Middle Eastern or North African descent.

SAMHAN: It was really based on concerns that we had about our invisibility. And now fast forward 25, 30 years, and it feels like there's a hypervisibility of our community. So it's really a double-edged sword.

WANG: The Census Bureau is not allowed to release any data identifying an individual. But Samhan says she's worried about what the Trump administration could do with data about specific populations for surveillance and other counterterrorism efforts. The White House is expected to announce a decision on these proposals by December 1. Hansi Lo Wang, NPR News, New York.

1 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

2 ethnic   

adj.人种的，种族的，异教徒的

参考例句：

• This music would sound more ethnic if you played it in steel drums.如果你用钢鼓演奏，这首乐曲将更具民族特色。
• The plan is likely only to aggravate ethnic frictions.这一方案很有可能只会加剧种族冲突。

3 radical   

n.激进份子，原子团，根号；adj.根本的，激进的，彻底的

参考例句：

• The patient got a radical cure in the hospital.病人在医院得到了根治。
• She is radical in her demands.她的要求十分偏激。

4 census   

n.(官方的)人口调查，人口普查

参考例句：

• A census of population is taken every ten years.人口普查每10年进行一次。
• The census is taken one time every four years in our country.我国每四年一次人口普查。

5 timing   

n.时间安排，时间选择

参考例句：

• The timing of the meeting is not convenient.会议的时间安排不合适。
• The timing of our statement is very opportune.我们发表声明选择的时机很恰当。

6 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

7 Portuguese   

n.葡萄牙人；葡萄牙语

参考例句：

• They styled their house in the Portuguese manner.他们仿照葡萄牙的风格设计自己的房子。
• Her family is Portuguese in origin.她的家族是葡萄牙血统。

8 sociologist   

n.研究社会学的人，社会学家

参考例句：

• His mother was a sociologist,researching socialism.他的母亲是个社会学家，研究社会主义。
• Max Weber is a great and outstanding sociologist.马克斯·韦伯是一位伟大的、杰出的社会学家。