La autonomía progresiva y el interés superior del niño en relación con su

You may have already noticed that even though science has established that race is not biologically based, the US Census Bureau continues to use the racial

categories when they allow survey takers to self-identify (see Figure 3). Why? Most scientists will tell you that if people

perceive something as being real then it becomes real in its consequences

(Thomas Theorem). Race being based on biology is so intricately connected to all

the subtle nuances of everyday life that the average person makes no distinction or effort at understanding. Most people simply believe it to be real. The Constitutional mandate to take a census of the US population so that the people are represented by Congress requires a count of people and their self-reported racial classification. Few argue that we should eliminate the race-biology construct, because it is still very important to the average person.

Figure 3. US Census Bureau Population Estimates By Race for 2000 and 2050*

*Retrieved from www.census.gov 19 May, 2014 United States Census. (2012). U.S. Census Bureau Projections Show a Slower Growing, Older, More Diverse Nation a Half Century from Now.

Washington, DC: U.S. Government Print Office. Retrieved from

Coming back to the genetics question, there is no single gene that identifies if one is African American, White, Asian, Native American, or Hispanic. One Genetics

company, AncestrybyDNA has created a precise test which can give you between an 80-95 percent accurate estimate of the geographic origins of your ancestors (see ) Retrieved 19 May, 2014

Oprah Winfrey, Spike Lee, and other celebrities have purchased the test (roughly about

$250 and is not covered by medical insurance). After reading about Oprah’s test in a magazine, I saved my money, asked my extended family to pitch in, and bought this test for my birthday (I know I’m a real nerd). I had hoped to find out what percentage of my ancestral heritage was Native American since both my mother and father had Cherokee great-grandparents. I discovered that in fact I have no Native American ancestors.

Instead I was mostly European (I have brown hair and blue eyes, and somewhat fair skin). I also had Middle-Eastern, Eastern European, and Southeast Asian ancestors.

My parents and grandparents are still confused because I have no Native American and quite a bit of Middle Eastern and South East Asian. My children felt disappointed

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because they defined their Native American heritage (even though it was small) as cool.

A few days after I shared the results with my wife and children, my youngest son told me how cool it was to be part Asian. They came to redefine their minority heritage to potentially include Japanese, Korean, and Chinese, and that was now cool. I have since learned that the odds of children who are born to the same parents having identical ancestral genetics are very rare (only the same for identical twins, triplets, etc.). The odds of randomly getting the same genetic heritage are extremely remote. So, siblings in the same families, with the same parents have different genetic markers indicating different racially diverse heritages. In the US, we make the race-biology claim a big deal because it is part of our culture and our socialization to do so. We tend to look at 4 categories of racial traits in order to distinguish ourselves from people of other races:

skin color, facial features, hair color and texture, and body shape and size (body

morphology). Four simple features have been used as the categorical basis of "Us and Them" thinking patterns throughout US history. Most don’t realize that there is much more variety within a given racial category than between them.

For example, look around your classroom and pick a few students who might fall into just one of the five basic racial groupings. Observe their variations in skin tone, hair texture, color, thickness, or curl. In my classes, I’ll ask for volunteers to come down to the front of the class and stand side by side. It becomes very obvious that not all Whites (or any racial grouping of people) look alike when compared to people considered to be of the same race. Why don’t we care about variation in physical features within our own racial groups? It comes back to our culture and socialization…we are socialized to see differences between rather than within racial categories. What’s the difference between a racial and ethnic group? See Figure 4 below which is a continuum of

biological versus cultural traits, race is biology-based and ethnicity is culture-based. An Ethnic Group consists of people who share a common orientation toward the world, who develop a sense of peoplehood, and who are perceived by others as having a distinctive culture.

Figure 4: Race and Ethnicity Continuum

© 2009 Ron J. Hammond, Ph.D

Ethnicity is conceptually different from race (see Max Weber’s 1922 work, reprinted in 1978, Economy and Society in Roth, G. and Wittich, C. U of Cal Press). Ethnicity refers to people, their religion, languages, traditions, and heritage. Much of what we discussed in the Culture chapter applies to one’s ethnicity as well as one’s race.

One very important US ethnic classification

is Hispanic; a category that was developed by the US Census Bureau to describe people of "Latin" origin and their descendants (see description in U.S. Census Bureau

Guidance on the Presentation and Comparison of Race and Hispanic Origin Data.

Retrieved 19 May, 2014 from

In 2013 the US Census reported that there were 53 million US Hispanics in 2012 with as many as 128 million living in the US by 2060 ( see Facts and Figures retrieved 13 June 2014).

"Consequently, by the end of the period (2060), nearly one in three U.S. residents

would be Hispanic, up from about one in six today. The black population is expected to

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increase from 41.2 million to 61.8 million over the same period. Its share of the total population would rise slightly, from 13.1 percent in 2012 to 14.7 percent in 2060" (see Press Release take from Internet 19 May, 2014 from

Hispanic, as a categorical classification is at best an ambiguous one because there are 19 countries between Mexico and South America (including a few Spanish-speaking island nations) and 1 country in Europe-Spain that could be a nation of origin for Hispanic persons and their ancestors. By the way, Brazilians are South Americans, but their national language is Portuguese and their most common ancestral heritage is African. Are they or are they not Hispanic? Also French-speaking Haitians come from the same island nation as Spanish speaking Dominicans. Aren’t both Hispanic?

"Hispanic" as a Census Bureau concept often leads to ambiguous conclusions and you’d do well to remember that the concept was created in an attempt to count US citizens with ethnic sensitivity.

To assume homogeneity, or very similar cultural traits, among all US Hispanics is a mistake. The same mistake is made when people classify all US Whites as being

homogeneous. But, there is a reason that Hispanic is an important concept. Basically, it identifies a category of sub-cultures within the mainstream US population of Spanish-speaking members (albeit a very diverse collective).