In Search of a Census Pigeonhole

Last week, I submitted a full set of fingerprints to the United States of America, which is still considering whether it will have me as a new citizen. The prints will reveal if I’ve committed some crime that would disqualify me, but I’m not worried.

Amazing, when you think of it. Nobody else but me can create those exact, intricate patterns of winding, interwoven lines.

The procedure to determine my racial identity seemed a lot less precise. A one-page form gave me these choices: American Indian or Alaskan Native, Asian or Pacific Islander, Black, White or Unknown. No “Others” allowed.

I was stumped. Could I be white? Partially, I’m sure. Am I black? That comes closer to my color, yet I’m more of a mocha. I know I’m not Asian, unless you count my ancient ancestors who trekked from China to the Americas across the frozen Bering Strait.

Mexican philosopher Jose Vasconcelos would say I’m a member of La Raza Cosmica, a merging of all the races in Latin America. But I didn’t see “Cosmic” as a choice on the form. So I’m sorry, Uncle Sam, but I left it blank.

Since then, I’ve realized I’m not the only one confused about race. For years, the Census Bureau has studied the problem in preparation for next year’s final count of the century. And the head-counters have gotten an earful from all sides on the issue.

Some people don’t want the government to count race at all. Others want new categories added. Still others say there’s no such thing as race, in a biological sense.

The issue was a lot simpler in the 1950s when I was almost the only Mexican kid in my Catholic school. I first became aware of race as a defining feature of Homo sapiens when less sensitive members of my species started calling me “beaner,” which, incidentally, has never been a separate census category.

In class, the nuns taught the world’s three major racial categories: Mongoloid, Negroid and Caucasoid, names that make little kids laugh. Eventually, adults also laughed them right out of the textbooks.

Modern genetics has shown us that humans share more similarities across racial lines than their diverse appearance suggests. Skin-deep features only make us think we’re all different--”the myth of fingerprints,” as Paul Simon might put it.

Lacking a scientific foundation, race, like beauty, becomes whatever we say it is.

The original census of 1790 counted whites, slaves and “taxable Indians.” Not a stellar start. Since 1900, 26 different racial terms have been used in the U.S. Census. Not long ago, the Irish, Italians and Jews were considered racially distinct from whites.

“Today’s ethnicities are yesterday’s races,” stated a report from the American Anthropological Assn. during the recent review of the Census Bureau’s 20-year-old racial categories. The anthropologists unsuccessfully urged the government to catch up with science and drop the term “race” altogether, replacing it with a less charged term like ethnic group.

Understandably, the public often confuses race, ethnicity and national origin. In census tests, for example, some whites defined themselves as multiracial because they come from both German and Irish stock. One man of mixed Hispanic and black blood refused the multiracial designation because “society sees me as black.” And in Tucson, some Hispanics wanted to report their race as “Brown.”

In next year’s census you won’t find a multiracial category. But people of mixed lineage for the first time will be able to pick more than one racial category. Separately, everybody must specify if they’re of Hispanic origin, and name the country they come from. Given that option on the fingerprint form, I would have said “Mexican.” Still, that leaves me with the problem of picking my race, which really is a fusion.

I don’t agree, however, with the reactionary crowd that wants to sabotage the racial count. One Southern newspaper urged readers to mark every racial category as a protest against “the official obsession with race in government agencies.” Translation: We’ve had enough of those pesky racial statistics that document discrimination and prompt the government to do something about social disparities.

“Race is never totally wiped out as a variable that distinguishes social outcomes for people,” said Jorge del Pinal, the Census Bureau’s chief of special population statistics. “If we saw these differences disappear, then these categories would also disappear.”

How does del Pinal intend to identify himself in next year’s count?

White and Mayan, he told me, in honor of his Anglo mother and Guatemalan dad.

That’s what America offers: the freedom to be who we really are.

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Agustin Gurza’s column appears Tuesdays. Readers can reach Gurza at (714) 966-7712 or online at agustin.gurza@latimes.com.