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Race (U.S. Census)

Race (U.S. Census)

The United States Census Bureau uses the federal government's definitions of race when performing a census. These definitions have changed in the past and may yet change between censuses. The racial categories are officially described as follows:¹ :The categories represent a social-political construct designed for collecting data on the race and ethnicity of broad population groups in this country, and are not anthropologically or scientifically based. :Furthermore, the race categories include both racial and national-origin groups. [http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/meta/long_68186.htm] Racial classification in the 2000 census was based solely on self-identification and, for the first time, did not pre-suppose disjointness: :The question on race asked respondents to report the race or races they considered themselves to be. Both questions are based on self-identification. Nearly seven million Americans identified themselves as members of more than one race in the 2000 census. For the 2000 census the Census Bureau considers race to be separate from Hispanic origin. Because of changes to definitions, the Census Bureau issued the following warning: :The question on race for Census 2000 was different from the one for the 1990 census in several ways. Most significantly, respondents were given the option of selecting one or more race categories to indicate their racial identities. Because of these changes, the Census 2000 data on race are not directly comparable with data from the 1990 census or earlier censuses. Caution must be used when interpreting changes in the racial composition of the U.S. population over time.

2000 Definitions

The following definitions apply to the 2000 census only.
- White or caucasian refers to people having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa. It includes people who indicated their race or races as "White" or wrote in entries such as Irish, German, Italian, Lebanese, Near Easterner, Arab, Polish, or Iranian. (See also Whites)
- Black or African American refers to people having origins in any of the Black racial groups of Africa. It includes people who indicated their race or races as "Black, African Am., or Negro", or wrote in entries such as African American, Afro American, Nigerian, or West Indian.
- American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) refer to people having origins in any of the original peoples of North and South America (including Central America), and who maintain tribal affiliation or community attachment. It includes people who indicated their race or races by marking this category or writing in their principal or enrolled tribe, such as Cherokee, Chippewa, Meherrin, or Navajo.
- Asian refers to people having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent. It includes people who indicated their race or races as "Asian Indian", "Chinese", "Filipino", "Korean", "Japanese", "Vietnamese", or "Other Asian", or wrote in entries such as Burmese, Hmong, Pakistani, or Thai. (See also: Asian American)
- Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander (NHPI) refers to people having origins in any of the original peoples of Hawaii, Guam, Samoa, or other Pacific Islands. It includes people who indicated their race or races as "Native Hawaiian", "Guamanian or Chamorro", "Samoan", or "Other Pacific Islander", or wrote in entries such as Tahitian, Mariana Islander, or Chuukese. (See also: Pacific Islander)
- Some other races were included in 2000 census for respondents who were unable to identify with the five Office of Management and Budget race categories. Respondents who provided write-in entries such as South African, Belizean, of a Hispanic origin (for example, Mexican, Puerto Rican, or Cuban), or even "American" are included in the "Some other race" category. Most of the people who define themselves as some other race are Mexican Americans who often call themselves "the Mexican race".
- Two or more races refers to multiracial people. The 2000 U.S. Census provides for a combination of up to six different races.

Footnote

The same language has been used for many years. See for example:
- [http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/fedreg/ombdir15.html Federal Register Notice October 30, 1997]
- [http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-02-001.html AMENDMENT: NIH POLICY AND GUIDELINES ON THE INCLUSION OF WOMEN AND MINORITIES AS SUBJECTS IN CLINICAL RESEARCH - OCTOBER, 2001] Black people are the only group represented without the description of "original".

References

- [http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/race/racefactcb.html Racial and Ethnic Classifications Used in Census 2000 and Beyond]
- [http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/c2kbr01-1.pdf Census 2000 Brief: Race and Hispanic Origin] (PDF document)
- [http://www.asianracedefinition.zoomshare.com Asian-American 2000 Census Race Definiton in Detail] Category:Demographics of the United States

United States Census Bureau

The United States Census Bureau (officially Bureau of the Census) is a part of the United States Department of Commerce. Its mission is defined in the Constitution of the United States, which directs that the population be enumerated at least once every ten years (through the U.S. Census), and each state's number of Representatives in Congress determined accordingly. It also is in charge of collecting statistics about the nation, its people, and economy. The Census Bureau's establishment is codified in Title 13 of the United States Code. United States CodeSince 1903, the official census-taking organ of the United States government has been the Bureau of the Census. The Bureau is headed by a Director, assisted by a Deputy Director and an Executive Staff composed of the associate directors. The Bureau has 12 regional offices (Atlanta, Dallas, Los Angeles, Boston, Denver, New York, Charlotte, Detroit, Philadelphia, Chicago, Kansas City, and Seattle) with additional processing centers set up temporarily for the decennial censuses. The sole purpose of the censuses and surveys is to secure general statistical information. Replies are obtained from individuals and establishments only to enable the compilation of such general statistics. The confidentiality of these replies is very important. By law, no one — neither the census takers nor any other Census Bureau employee — is permitted to reveal identifiable information about any person, household, or business. The bureau recognizes four census regions within the United States, and further organizes them into nine divisions. These regions are groupings of states that subdivide the United States for the presentation of data. They should not be construed as bound together by any geographical, historical, or cultural concerns. The regions are as follows:region
- Region 1 (Northeast) :
- Division 1 (New England) :
- Division 2 (Middle Atlantic)
- Region 2 (Midwest) :
- Division 3 (East North Central) :
- Division 4 (West North Central)
- Region 3 (South) :
- Division 5 (South Atlantic) :
- Division 6 (East South Central) :
- Division 7 (West South Central)
- Region 4 (West) :
- Division 8 (Mountain) :
- Division 9 (Pacific) The Census Bureau headquarters is located at 4700 Silver Hill Road, Suitland Maryland.

Reference and external links

- The original version of this article was adapted from [http://www.census.gov/acsd/www/history.html U.S. Census Bureau] text.
- [http://www.census.gov/ United States Census Bureau website]
- [http://www.census.gov/geo/www/garm.html Geographic Areas Reference Manual] from the U.S. Census Bureau contains detailed explanations of geographic terms used in the census. Census Bureau Category:National statistical services Census Bureau Census Bureau ja:アメリカ合衆国統計局

Race

A race is a population of humans distinguished from other populations. The most widely used racial categories are based on visible traits (especially skin color and facial features). Conceptions of race, as well as specific racial groupings, vary by culture and time and are often controversial due to their impact on social identity hence identity politics. Since the 1940s, evolutionary scientists have rejected the view of race according to which a number of finite lists of essential characteristics could be used to determine a like number of races. By the 1960s, data and models from population genetics called into question taxonomic understandings of race, and many have turned from conceptualizing and analyzing human variation in terms of race to doing so in terms of populations and clines instead. However, many scientists believe that race is a valid and useful concept. Moreover, since the 1990s, data and models from genomics and cladistics have resulted in a revolution in our understanding of human evolution, which has led some to propose a new "lineage" definition of race. These scientists have made related arguments that races are valid when understood as fuzzy sets, clusters, or extended families. Currently, opinions differ substantially within and among academic disciplines. Many evolutionary and social scientists, drawing on such biological research, think common race definitions, or any race definitions pertaining to humans, lack taxonomic rigour and validity. They argue that race definitions are imprecise, arbitrary, derived from custom, and that the races observed vary according to the culture examined. They further maintain that race is best understood as a social construct. Other scientists, however, have argued that this shift is motivated more by political than scientific reasons.

Historical origins of "race"

social construct.]]

History of the term

Given our visual acuity and complex social relationships, humans presumably have always observed and speculated about the physical differences among individuals and groups. But different societies have attributed markedly different meanings to these distinctions. The division of humanity into distinct "races" can be traced as far back as the Ancient Egyptian sacred text the Book of Gates, which identifies four categories that are now conventionally labelled "Egyptians", "Asiatics", "Libyans", and "Nubians". However, such distinctions tended to merge differences defined by features such as skin color, with tribal and national identity. Classical civilizations from Rome to China tended to invest much more importance in family or tribal affiliations than in physical appearance (Dikötter 1992; Goldenberg 2003). Ancient Greek and Roman authors also attempted to explain and categorize visible biological differences between peoples known to them. Such categories often also included fantastical human-like beings that were supposed to exist in far-away lands. Some Roman writers adhered to an environmental determinism in which climate could affect the appearance and character of groups (Isaac 2004). But in many ancient civilizations, individuals with widely varying physical appearances could become full members of a society by growing up within that society or by adopting the society's cultural norms (Snowden 1983; Lewis 1990). Medieval models of race mixed Classical ideas with the notion that humanity as a whole was descended from Shem, Ham and Japheth, the three sons of Noah, producing distinct Semitic (Asian), Hamitic (African), and Japhetic (European) peoples. The word race entered the English language in the 16th century, from French race "race, breed, lineage" (which in turn was probably a loan from Italian razza). Meanings of the term in the 16th century included "wines with a characteristic flavour", "people with common occupation", and "generation". The meaning "tribe" or "nation" emerged in the 17th century. The modern meaning, "one of the major divisions of mankind", dates to the late 18th century, but it never became exclusive (cf. continued use of "the human race"). The ultimate origin of the word is unknown; suggestions include Arabic ra'is meaning "head", but also "beginning" or "origin". The English word "race", along with many of the ideas now associated with the term, were products of the European era of exploration (Smedley 1999). As Europeans encountered people from different parts of the world, they speculated about the physical, social, and cultural differences between human groups. The rise of the African slave trade, which gradually displaced an earlier trade in slaves from throughout the world, created a further incentive to categorize human groups to justify the barbarous treatment of African slaves (Meltzer 1993). Drawing on classical sources and on their own internal interactions—for example, the hostility between the English and Irish was a powerful influence on early thinking about the differences between people (Takaki 1993)—Europeans began to sort themselves and others into groups associated with physical appearance and with deeply ingrained behaviors and capacities. A set of "folk beliefs" took hold that linked inherited physical differences between groups to inherited intellectual, behavioral, and moral qualities (Banton 1977). Although similar ideas can be found in other cultures (Lewis 1990; Dikötter 1992), they appear not to have had as much influence on social structures as they did in Europe and the parts of the world colonized by Europeans.

History of race research

The first scientific attempts to categorize race date from the 17th century, along with the development of European imperialism and colonization around the world. The first post-Classical published classification of humans into distinct races seems to be François Bernier's Nouvelle division de la terre par les différents espèces ou races qui l'habitent ("New division of Earth by the different species or races which inhabit it"), published in 1684. In the 18th century, the differences between human groups became a focus of scientific investigation (Todorov 1993). Initially, scholars focused on cataloging and describing "The Natural Varieties of Mankind," as Johann Friedrich Blumenbach entitled his 1775 text (which established the five major divisions of humans still reflected in some racial classifications). But as the science of anthropology took shape in the 19th century, European and American scientists increasingly sought explanations for the behavioral and cultural differences they attributed to groups (Stanton 1960). For example, they measured the shapes and sizes of skulls and related the results to group differences in intelligence or other attributes (Lieberman 2001). Both before and after the 1859 publication of On the Origin of Species, a debate raged in Europe over whether different human groups had the same origin or were the product of separate creations or evolutionary lineages (Wolpoff and Caspari 1997). From the 17th through the 19th centuries, the merging of folk beliefs about group differences with scientific explanations of those differences produced what one scholar has called an "ideology of race" (Smedley 1999). According to this ideology, races are primordial, natural, enduring, and distinct. Some groups might be the result of mixture between formerly distinct populations, but careful study can distinguish the ancestral races that had combined to produce admixed groups. In the 19th century a number of natural scientists wrote on race: Georges Cuvier, James Cowles Pritchard, Louis Agassiz, Charles Pickering, and Johann Friedrich Blumenbach. These scientists made three claims about race: first, that races are objective, naturally occurring divisions of humanity; second, that there is a strong relationship between biological races and other human phenomena (such as forms of activity and interpersonal relations and culture, and by extension the relative material success of cultures); third, that race is therefore a valid scientific category that can be used to explain and predict individual and group behavior. Races were distinguished by skin color, facial type, cranial profile and size, texture and color of hair. Moreover, races were almost universally considered to reflect group differences in moral character and intelligence. Their understanding of race was usually both essentialist (defining a race by a list of characteristics) and taxonomic (hierarchical). The advent of Darwinian models of evolution and Mendelian genetics, however, called into question the scientific validity of both characteristics, and required a radical reconsideration of race. The concept of race found wide application in many societies. The eugenics movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries asserted as self-evident the biological inferiority of particular groups (Kevles 1985). In many parts of the world, the idea of race became a way of rigidly dividing groups by use of culture as well as physical appearances (Hannaford 1996). Campaigns of oppression and genocide often used supposed racial differences to motivate inhuman acts against others (Horowitz 2001).

20th- and 21st-century debates over race

Scale of race research

Discussions of race are complicated because race research has taken place on at least two scales (global and national) and from the point of view of different research aims. Evolutionary scientists are typically interested in humanity as a whole; and taxonomic racial classifications are often either unhelpful to, or refuted by, studies that focus on the question of global human diversity. Policy-makers and applied professions (such as law-enforcement or medicine), however, are typically concerned only with genetic variation at the national or sub-national scale, and find taxonomic racial categories useful. These distinctions of research aims and scale can be seen by the example of three major research papers published since 2002: Rosenberg et al. (2002), Serre & Pääbo (2004), and Tang et al. (2005). Both Rosenberg et al. and Serre & Pääbo study global genetic variation, but they arrive at different conclusions. Serre & Pääbo attribute their differing conclusions to experimental design. While Rosenberg et al. studied individuals from populations across the globe without respect to geography, Serre & Pääbo sampled individuals with respect to geography. By sampling individuals from major populations on each continent, Rosenberg et al. find evidence for genetic "clusters" (i.e., races). In contrast, Serre & Pääbo find that with respect to geography human genetic variation is continuous and "clinal". The research interest of Rosenberg et al. is medicine (i.e., epidemiology), whereas the research interest of Serre & Pääbo is human evolution. Tang et al. studied genetic variation within the United States with an interest in whether race/ethnicity or geography is of greater importance to epidemiological research. In contrast to Serre & Pääbo, Tang et al. find that race/ethnicity is of greater importance within the United States. Further [http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/AJHG/journal/issues/v77n3/42406/brief/42406.abstract.html recent research] correlating self-identified race with [http://pritch.bsd.uchicago.edu/software/structure2_1.html population genetic structure] echoed the conculsions in Tang. Indeed, the contrasting conclusions between global and national levels of analysis were predicted by Serre & Pääbo: :It is worth noting that the colonization history of the United States has resulted in a "sampling" of the human population made up largely of people from western Europe, western Africa, and Southeast Asia. Thus, studies in which individuals from Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia are used... might be an adequate description of the major components of the U.S. population.

Race as subspecies

With the advent of the modern synthesis in the early 20th century, biologists developed a new, more rigorous model of race as subspecies. For these biologists, a race is a recognizable group forming all or part of a species. A monotypic species has no races, or rather one race comprising the whole species. Monotypic species can occur in several ways:
- All members of the species are very similar and cannot be sensibly divided into biologically significant subcategories.
- The individuals vary considerably but the variation is essentially random and largely meaningless so far as genetic transmission of these variations is concerned (many plant species fit into this category, which is why horticulturists interested in preserving, say, a particular flower color avoid propagation from seed, and instead use vegetative methods like propagation from cuttings).
- The variation between individuals is noticeable and follows a pattern, but there are no clear dividing lines between separate groups: they fade imperceptibly into one another. Such clinal variation always indicates substantial gene flow between the apparently separate groups that make up the population(s). Populations that have a steady, substantial gene flow between them are likely to represent a monotypic species even when a fair degree of genetic variation is obvious. A polytypic species has two or more races (or, in current parlance, two or more sub-types). These are separate groups that are clearly distinct from one another and do not generally interbreed (although there may be a relatively narrow hybridization zone), but which would interbreed freely if given the chance to do so. Note that groups which would not interbreed freely, even if brought together such that they had the opportunity to do so, are not races: they are separate species. Although this attempt at conceptual precision gained currency with many biologists, especially zoologists, evolutionary scientists have criticized it on a number of fronts.

The rejection of race and the rise of "population" and "cline"

At the beginning of the 20th century, anthropologists questioned, and subsequently abandoned, the claim that biologically distinct races are isomorphic with distinct linguistic, cultural, and social groups. Then, the rise of population genetics led some mainstream evolutionary scientists in anthropology and biology to question the very validity of race as scientific concept describing an objectively real phenomenon. Those who came to reject the validity of the concept, race, did so for four reasons: empirical, definitional, the availability of alternative concepts, and ethical (Lieberman and Byrne 1993). The first to challenge the concept of race on empirical grounds were anthropologists Franz Boas, who demonstrated phenotypic plasticity due to environmental factors (Boas 1912), and Ashley Montagu (1941, 1942), who relied on evidence from genetics. Zoologists Edward O. Wilson and W. Brown then challenged the concept from the perspective of general animal systematics, and further rejected the claim that "races" were equivalent to "subspecies" (Wilson and Brown 1953). One of the crucial innovations in reconceptualizing genotypic and phenotypic variation was anthropologist C. Loring Brace's observation that such variations, insofar as they are affected by natural selection, migration, or genetic drift, are distributed along geographic gradations; these gradations are called "clines" (Brace 1964). This point called attention to a problem common to phenotypic-based descriptions of races (for example, those based on hair texture and skin color): they ignore a host of other similarities and difference (for example, blood type) that do not correlate highly with the markers for race. Thus, anthropologist Frank Livingstone's conclusion that, since clines cross racial boundaries, "there are no races, only clines" (Livingstone 1962: 279). In 1964, biologists Paul Ehrlich and Holm pointed out cases where two or more clines are distributed discordantly—for example, melanin is distributed in a decreasing pattern from the equator north and south; frequencies for the haplotype for beta-S hemoglobin, on the other hand, radiate out of specific geographical points in Africa (Ehrlich and Holm 1964). As anthropologists Leonard Lieberman and Fatimah Linda Jackson observe, "Discordant patterns of heterogeneity falsify any description of a population as if it were genotypically or even phenotypically homogeneous" (Lieverman and Jackson 1995). Finally, geneticist Richard Lewontin, observing that 85 percent of human variation occurs within populations, and not between populations, argued that neither "race" nor "subspecies" was an appropriate or useful way to describe populations (Lewontin 1973). This view is purportedly debunked as Lewontin's Fallacy. Some researchers report the variation between racial groups (measured by Sewall Wright's population structure statistic F_ST) accounts for as little as 5% of human genetic variation². However, because of technical limitations of F_ST, many geneticists now believe that low F_ST values do not invalidate the suggestion that there might be different human races (Edwards, 2003). Meanwhile, neo-Marxists such as David Harvey (1982, 1984, 1992) believe that race is a social construct that in reality does not exist, used instead to extenuate class differences. These empirical challenges to the concept of race forced evolutionary sciences to reconsider their definition of race. Mid-century, anthropologist William Boyd defined race as: :A population which differs significantly from other populations in regard to the frequency of one or more of the genes it possesses. It is an arbitrary matter which, and how many, gene loci we choose to consider as a significant "constellation" (Boyd 1950). Lieberman and Jackson (1994) have pointed out that "the weakness of this statement is that if one gene can distinguish races then the number of races is as numerous as the number of human couples reproducing." Moreover, anthropologist Stephen Molnar has suggested that the discordance of clines inevitably results in a multiplication of races that renders the concept itself useless (Molnar 1992). Alongside empirical and conceptual problems with "race" following the Second World War, evolutionary and social scientists were acutely aware of how beliefs about race had been used to justify discrimination, apartheid, slavery, and genocide. This questioning gained momentum in the 1960s during the U.S. civil rights movement and the emergence of numerous anti-colonial movements worldwide. In the face of these issues, some evolutionary scientists have simply abandoned the concept of race in favor of "population." What distinguishes population from previous groupings of humans by race is that it refers to a breeding population (essential to genetic calculations) and not to a biological taxon. Other evolutionary scientists have abandoned the concept of race in favor of cline (meaning, how the frequency of a trait changes along a geographic gradient). The concepts of population and cline are not, however, mutually exclusive and both are used by many evolutionary scientists. In the face of this rejection of race by evolutionary scientists, many social scientists have replaced the word race with the word "ethnicity" to refer to self-identifying groups based on beliefs in shared religion, nationality, or race. Moreover, they understood these shared beliefs to mean that religion, nationality, and race itself are social constructs and have no objective basis in the supernatural or natural realm (Gordon 1964). See also the American Anthropological Association's Statement on Race [http://www.aaanet.org/stmts/racepp.htm].

Summary of different definitions of race

The United States government has provided definitions regarding race (see for example Race (U.S. Census)). Racial classification in the U.S. 2000 census was based solely on self-identification, did not pre-suppose disjointedness, and did not include a category "Hispanic," which is considered an ethnicity, rather than a race, by the U.S. Census.

The origins, patterns, and physical manifestations of human genetic variation

Origins of modern humans

:see also single-origin hypothesis, multiregional hypothesis. multiregional hypothesis Any biological model for race must account for the development of racial differences during human evolution. For much of the 20th century, however, anthropologists relied on an incomplete fossil record for reconstructing human evolution. Their models seldom provided a firm basis for drawing inferences about the origin of races. Modern research in molecular biology, however, has provided evolutionary scientists with a whole new kind of data, which adds considerably to the knowledge of our past. There has been considerable debate among anthropologists as to the origins of Homo sapiens. About a million years ago Homo erectus migrated out of Africa and into Europe and Asia. The debate hinges on whether Homo erectus evolved into Homo sapiens more or less simultaneously in Africa, Europe, and Asia, or whether Homo sapiens evolved only in Africa, and eventually supplanted Homo erectus in Europe and Asia. Each model suggests different possible scenarios for the evolution of distinct races.

Multiregional hypothesis

Advocates of the first scenario (see Frayer et al. 1993), the multiregional continuity evolution model, cite as evidence anatomical continuity in the fossil record in South Central Europe (Smith 1982), East Asia and Australia (Wolpoff 1993) (anatomical affinity is taken to suggest genetic affinity). They argue that very strong genetic similarities among all humans do not prove recent common ancestry, but rather reflect the interconnectedness of human populations around the world, resulting in relatively constant gene flow (Thorne and Wolpoff 1992). They further argue that this model is consistent with clinal patterns (Wolpoff 1993). The most important element of this model for theories of race is that it allows a million years for the evolution of Homo sapiens around the world; this is more than enough time for the evolution of different races. Leiberman and Jackson (1995), however, have noted that this model depends on several findings relevant to race: (1) that marked morphological contrasts exist between individuals found at the center and at the perimeter of Middle Pleistocene range of the genus Homo; (2) that many features can be shown to emerge at the edge of that range before they develop at the center; and (3) that these features exhibit great tenacity through time. Regional variations in these features can thus be taken as evidence for long term differences among genus Homo individuals that prefigure different races among present-day Homo sapiens individuals.

Out of Africa

Middle Pleistocene (numbers are millennia before present).]] Information about the history of our species comes from two main sources: the paleoanthropological record and historical inferences based on current genetic differences observed in humans. Although both sources of information are fragmentary, they have been converging in recent years on the same general story. Since the 1990s, it has become common to use multilocus genotypes to distinguish different human groups and to allocate individuals to groups (Bamshad et al. 2004). These data have led to an examination of the biological validity of races as evolutionary lineages and the description of races in cladistic terms. The technique of multilocus genotyping has been used to determine patterns of human demographic history. Thus, the concept of "race" afforded by these techniques is synonymous with ancestry, broadly understood. Studies of human genetic variation imply that Africa was the ancestral source of all modern humans, and that Homo sapiens migrated out of Africa and displaced Homo erectus between 140,000 and 290,000 years ago (Cann et al. 1987). Indigenous Australians are believed to be an early out-group that remained isolated. Most other groups, including Europeans, Asians, and Native Americans, were found to be a single related (monophyletic) group resulting from a later out-migration from Africa, which could reasonably be divided into West and East Eurasian groups. The existing fossil evidence suggests that anatomically modern humans evolved in Africa, within the last ∼200,000 years, from a pre-existing population of humans (Klein 1999). Although it is not easy to define "anatomically modern" in a way that encompasses all living humans and excludes all archaic humans (Lieberman et al. 2002), the generally agreed-upon physical characteristics of anatomical modernity include a high rounded skull, facial retraction, and a light and gracile, as opposed to heavy and robust, skeleton (Lahr 1996). Early fossils with these characteristics have been found in eastern Africa and have been dated to ∼160,000–200,000 years ago (White et al. 2003; McDougall et al. 2005). At that time, the population of anatomically modern humans appears to have been small and localized (Harpending et al. 1998). Much larger populations of archaic humans lived elsewhere in the Old World, including the Neandertals in Europe and an earlier species of humans, Homo erectus, in Asia (Swisher et al. 1994). Fossils of the earliest anatomically modern humans found outside Africa are from two sites in the Middle East and date to a period of relative global warmth, ∼100,000 years ago, though this region was reinhabited by Neandertals in later millennia as the climate in the northern hemisphere again cooled (Lahr and Foley 1998). Groups of anatomically modern humans appear to have moved outside Africa permanently sometime >60,000 years ago. One of the earliest modern skeletons found outside Africa is Mungo Man, from Australia, and has been dated to ∼42,000 years ago (Bowler et al. 2003), although studies of environmental changes in Australia argue for the presence of modern humans in Australia >55,000 years ago (Miller et al. 1999). To date, the earliest anatomically modern skeleton discovered from Europe comes from the Carpathian Mountains of Romania and is dated to 34,000–36,000 years ago (Trinkaus et al. 2003). Existing data on human genetic variation support and extend conclusions based on the fossil evidence. African populations exhibit greater genetic diversity than do populations in the rest of the world, implying that humans appeared first in Africa and later colonized Eurasia and the Americas (Tishkoff and Williams 2002; Yu et al. 2002; Tishkoff and Verrelli 2003). The genetic variation seen outside Africa is generally a subset of the variation within Africa, a pattern that would be produced if the migrants from Africa were limited in number and carried just part of African genetic variability with them (Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman 2003). Patterns of genetic variation suggest an earlier population expansion in Africa followed by a subsequent expansion in non-African populations, and the dates calculated for the expansions generally coincide with the archaeological record (Jorde et al. 1998). Aspects of the relationship between anatomically modern and archaic humans remain contentious. Studies of mtDNA (Ingman et al. 2000), the Y chromosome (Underhill et al. 2000), portions of the X chromosome (Kaessmann et al. 1999), and many (though not all) autosomal regions (Harpending and Rogers 2000) support the "Out of Africa" account of human history, in which anatomically modern humans appeared first in eastern Africa and then migrated throughout Africa and into the rest of the world, with little or no interbreeding between modern humans and the archaic populations they gradually replaced (Tishkoff et al. 2000; Stringer 2002). However, several groups of researchers cite fossil and genetic evidence to argue for a more complex account. They contend that humans bearing modern traits emerged several times from Africa, over an extended period, and mixed with archaic humans in various parts of the world (Hawks et al. 2000; Eswaran 2002; Templeton 2002; Ziętkiewicz et al. 2003). As a result, they say, autosomal DNA from archaic human populations living outside Africa persists in modern populations, and modern populations in various parts of the world still bear some physical resemblance to the archaic populations that inhabited those regions (Wolpoff et al. 2001). However, distinguishing possible contributions to the gene pool of modern humans from archaic humans outside Africa is difficult, especially since many autosomal loci coalesce at times preceding the separation of archaic human populations (Pääbo 2003). In addition, studies of mtDNA from archaic and modern humans and extant Y chromosomes suggest that any surviving genetic contributions of archaic humans outside Africa must be small, if they exist at all (Krings et al. 1997; Nordborg 1998; Takahata et al. 2001; Serre et al. 2004). The observation that most genes studied to date coalesce in African populations points toward the importance of Africa as the source of most modern genetic variation, perhaps with some subdivision in the ancestral African population (Satta and Takahata 2002). Sequence data for hundreds of loci from widely distributed worldwide populations eventually may clarify the population processes associated with the appearance of anatomically modern humans (Wall 2000), as well as the amount of gene flow among modern humans since then.

Cladistics

Mungo Man A phylogenetic tree like the one shown above is usually derived from DNA or protein sequences from populations. Often mitochondrial DNA or Y chromosome sequences are used to study ancient human demographics. These single-locus sources of DNA do not recombine and are inherited from a single parent. Individuals from the various continental groups tend to be more similar to one another than to people from other continents. The tree is rooted in the common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans, which is believed to have originated in Africa. Horizontal distance corresponds to two things: #Genetic distance. Given below the diagram, the genetic difference between humans and chimps is roughly 2%, or 20 times larger than the variation among modern humans. #Temporal remoteness of the most recent common ancestor. Rough estimates are given above the diagram, in millions of years. The mitochondrial most recent common ancestor of modern humans lived roughly 200,000 years ago, latest common ancestors of humans and chimps between four and seven million years ago. Chimpanzees and humans belong to different genera, indicated in red. Formation of species and subspecies is also indicated, and the formation of "races" is indicated in the green rectangle to the right (note that only a very rough representation of human phylogeny is given). Note that vertical distances are not meaningful in this representation.

Distribution of variation

A thorough description of the differences in patterns of genetic variation between humans and other species awaits additional genetic studies of human populations and nonhuman species. But the data gathered to date suggest that human variation exhibits several distinctive characteristics. First, compared with many other mammalian species, humans are genetically less diverse—a counterintuitive finding, given our large population and worldwide distribution (Li and Sadler 1991; Kaessmann et al. 2001). For example, the chimpanzee subspecies living just in central and western Africa have higher levels of diversity than do humans (Ebersberger et al. 2002; Yu et al. 2003; Fischer et al. 2004). Two random humans are expected to differ at approximately 1 in 1000 nucleotide pairs, whereas two random chimpanzees differ at 1 in 500 nucleotide pairs. However, with a genome of approximate 3 billion nucleotides, on average two humans differ at approximately 3 million nucleotides. Most of these single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are neutral, but some are functional and influence the phenotypic differences between humans. It is estimated that about 10 million SNPs exist in human populations, where the rarer SNP allele has a frequency of at least 1% (see International HapMap Project). The distribution of variants within and among human populations also differs from that of many other species. The details of this distribution are impossible to describe succinctly because of the difficulty of defining a "population," the clinal nature of variation, and heterogeneity across the genome (Long and Kittles 2003). In general, however, 5%–15% of genetic variation occurs between large groups living on different continents, with the remaining majority of the variation occurring within such groups (Lewontin 1972; Jorde et al. 2000a; Hinds et al. 2005). This distribution of genetic variation differs from the pattern seen in many other mammalian species, for which existing data suggest greater differentiation between groups (Templeton 1998; Kittles and Weiss 2003). In the field of population genetics, it is believed that the distribution of neutral polymorphisms among contemporary humans reflects human demographic history. Our history as a species also has left genetic signals in regional populations. For example, in addition to having higher levels of genetic diversity, populations in Africa tend to have lower amounts of linkage disequilibrium than do populations outside Africa, partly because of the larger size of human populations in Africa over the course of human history and partly because the number of modern humans who left Africa to colonize the rest of the world appears to have been relatively low (Gabriel et al. 2002). In contrast, populations that have undergone dramatic size reductions or rapid expansions in the past and populations formed by the mixture of previously separate ancestral groups can have unusually high levels of linkage disequilibrium (Nordborg and Tavare 2002). In the field of population genetics, it is believed that the distribution of neutral polymorphisms among contemporary humans reflects human demographic history. It is believed that humans passed through a population bottleneck before a rapid expansion coinciding with migrations out of Africa leading to an African-Eurasian divergence around 100,000 years ago (ca. 5,000 generations), followed by a European-Asian divergence about 40,000 years ago (ca. 2,000 generations). The rapid expansion of a previously small population has two important effects on the distribution of genetic variation. First, the so-called founder effect occurs when founder populations bring only a subset of the genetic variation from their ancestral population. Second, as founders become more geographically separated, the probability that two individuals from different founder populations will mate becomes smaller. The effect of this assortative mating is to reduce gene flow between geographical groups, and to increase the genetic distance between groups. The expansion of humans from Africa affected the distribution of genetic variation in two other ways. First, smaller (founder) populations experience greater genetic drift because of increased fluctuations in neutral polymorphisms. Second, new polymorphisms that arose in one group were less likely to be transmitted to other groups as gene flow was restricted. Many other geographic, climatic, and historical factors have contributed to the patterns of human genetic variation seen in the world today. For example, population processes associated with colonization, periods of geographic isolation, socially reinforced endogamy, and natural selection all have affected allele frequencies in certain populations (Jorde et al. 2000b; Bamshad and Wooding 2003). In general, however, the recency of our common ancestry and continual gene flow among human groups have limited genetic differentiation in our species.

Substructure in the human population

genetic drift New data on human genetic variation has reignited the debate surrounding race. Most of the controversy surrounds the question of how to interpret these new data, and whether conclusions based on existing data are sound (see validity of human races). A large majority of researchers endorse the view that continental groups do not constitute different subspecies. However, other researchers still debate whether evolutionary lineages should rightly be called "races". These questions are particularly pressing for biomedicine, where self-described race is often used as an indicator of ancestry (see race in biomedicine below). Although the genetic differences among human groups are relatively small, these differences nevertheless can be used to situate many individuals within broad, geographically based groupings. For example, computer analyses of hundreds of polymorphic loci sampled in globally distributed populations have revealed the existence of genetic clustering that roughly is associated with groups that historically have occupied large continental and subcontinental regions (Rosenberg et al. 2002; Bamshad et al. 2003). Some commentators have argued that these patterns of variation provide a biological justification for the use of traditional racial categories. They argue that the continental clusterings correspond roughly with the division of human beings into sub-Saharan Africans; Europeans, western Asians, and northern Africans; eastern Asians; Polynesians and other inhabitants of Oceania; and Native Americans (Risch et al. 2002). Other observers disagree, saying that the same data undercut traditional notions of racial groups (King and Motulsky 2002; Calafell 2003; Tishkoff and Kidd 2004). They point out, for example, that major populations considered races or subgroups within races do not necessarily form their own clusters. Thus, samples taken from India and Pakistan affiliate with Europeans or eastern Asians rather than separating into a distinct cluster. However, samples from the Kalash, a small population living in northwestern Pakistan, form their own cluster on a level comparable with those of the major continental regions (Rosenberg et al. 2002). Sampling design can have a critical influence on the results of such studies. Studies of genetic clustering often have relied on samples taken from widely separated and socially defined populations. When samples were analyzed from individuals who were more evenly distributed geographically, clustering was far less evident (Serre and Pääbo 2004). Furthermore, because human genetic variation is clinal, many individuals affiliate with two or more continental groups. Thus, the genetically based "biogeographical ancestry" assigned to any given person generally will be broadly distributed and will be accompanied by sizable uncertainties (Pfaff et al. 2004). In many parts of the world, groups have mixed in such a way that many individuals have relatively recent ancestors from widely separated regions. Although genetic analyses of large numbers of loci can produce estimates of the percentage of a person's ancestors coming from various continental populations (Shriver et al. 2003; Bamshad et al. 2004), these estimates may assume a false distinctiveness of the parental populations, since human groups have exchanged mates from local to continental scales throughout history (Cavalli-Sforza et al. 1994; Hoerder 2002). Even with large numbers of markers, information for estimating admixture proportions of individuals or groups is limited, and estimates typically will have wide CIs (Pfaff et al. 2004).

Physical variation in humans

The distribution of many physical traits resembles the distribution of genetic variation within and between human populations (American Association of Physical Anthropologists 1996; Keita and Kittles 1997). For example, ∼90% of the variation in human head shapes occurs within every human group, and ∼10% separates groups, with a greater variability of head shape among individuals with recent African ancestors (Relethford 2002). A prominent exception to the common distribution of physical characteristics within and among groups is skin color. Approximately 10% of the variance in skin color occurs within groups, and ~90% occurs between groups (Relethford 2002). This distribution of skin color and its geographic patterning—with people whose ancestors lived predominantly near the equator having darker skin than those with ancestors who lived predominantly in higher latitudes—indicate that this attribute has been under strong selective pressure. Darker skin appears to be strongly selected for in equatorial regions to prevent sunburn, skin cancer, the photolysis of folate, and damage to sweat glands (Sturm et al. 2001; Rees 2003). A leading hypothesis for the selection of lighter skin in higher latitudes is that it enables the body to form greater amounts of vitamin D, which helps prevent rickets (Jablonski 2004). However, the vitamin D hypothesis is not universally accepted (Aoki 2002), and lighter skin in high latitudes may correspond simply to an absence of selection for dark skin (Harding et al. 2000). Because skin color has been under strong selective pressure, similar skin colors can result from convergent adaptation rather than from genetic relatedness. Sub-Saharan Africans, tribal populations from southern India, and Indigenous Australians have similar skin pigmentation, but genetically they are no more similar than are other widely separated groups. Furthermore, in some parts of the world in which people from different regions have mixed extensively, the connection between skin color and ancestry has been substantially weakened (Parra et al. 2004). In Brazil, for example, skin color is not closely associated with the percentage of recent African ancestors a person has, as estimated from an analysis of genetic variants differing in frequency among continent groups (Parra et al. 2003). Considerable speculation has surrounded the possible adaptive value of other physical features characteristic of groups, such as the constellation of facial features observed in many eastern and northeastern Asians (Guthrie 1996). However, any given physical characteristic generally is found in multiple groups (Lahr 1996), and demonstrating that environmental selective pressures shaped specific physical features will be difficult, since such features may have resulted from sexual selection for individuals with certain appearances or from genetic drift (Roseman 2004).

Social interpretation of physical variation

Incongruities of racial classifications

Even as the idea of "race" was becoming a powerful organizing principle in many societies, the shortcomings of the concept were apparent. In the Old World, the gradual transition in appearances from one group to adjacent groups emphasized that "one variety of mankind does so sensibly pass into the other, that you cannot mark out the limits between them," as Blumenbach observed in his writings on human variation (Marks 1995, p. 54). In parts of the Americas, the situation was somewhat different. The immigrants to the New World came largely from widely separated regions of the Old World—western and northern Europe, western Africa, and, later, eastern Asia and southern Europe. In the Americas, the immigrant populations began to mix among themselves and with the indigenous inhabitants of the continent. In the United States, for example, most people who self-identify as African American have some European ancestors—in one analysis of genetic markers that have differing frequencies between continents, European ancestry ranged from an estimated 7% for a sample of Jamaicans to ∼23% for a sample of African Americans from New Orleans (Parra et al. 1998). Similarly, many people who identify as European American have some African or Native American ancestors, either through openly interracial marriages or through the gradual inclusion of people with mixed ancestry into the majority population. In a survey of college students who self-identified as "white" in a northeastern U.S. university, ∼30% were estimated to have <90% European ancestry (Shriver et al. 2003). In the United States, social and legal conventions developed over time that forced individuals of mixed ancestry into simplified racial categories (Gossett 1997). An example is the "one-drop rule" implemented in some state laws that treated anyone with a single known African American ancestor as black (Davis 2001). The decennial censuses conducted since 1790 in the United States also created an incentive to establish racial categories and fit people into those categories (Nobles 2000). In other countries in the Americas where mixing among groups was more extensive, social categories have tended to be more numerous and fluid, with people moving into or out of categories on the basis of a combination of socioeconomic status, social class, ancestry, and appearance (Mörner 1967). Efforts to sort the increasingly mixed population of the United States into discrete categories generated many difficulties (Spickard 1992). By the standards used in past censuses, many millions of children born in the United States have belonged to a different race than have one of their biological parents. Efforts to track mixing between groups led to a proliferation of categories (such as "mulatto" and "octoroon") and "blood quantum" distinctions that became increasingly untethered from self-reported ancestry. A person's racial identity can change over time, and self-ascribed race can differ from assigned race (Kressin et al. 2003). Until the 2000 census, Latinos were required to identify with a single race despite the long history of mixing in Latin America; partly as a result of the confusion generated by the distinction, 42% of Latino respondents in the 2000 census ignored the specified racial categories and checked "some other race" (Mays et al. 2003).

Ethnicity as a way of categorizing people

As the problems surrounding the word "race" became increasingly apparent during the 20th century, the word "ethnicity" was promoted as a way of characterizing the differences between groups (Huxley and Haddon 1936; Hutchinson and Smith 1996). Ethnicity typically emphasizes the cultural, socioeconomic, religious, and political qualities of human groups rather than their genetic ancestry. It may encompass language, diet, religion, dress, customs, kinship systems, or historical or territorial identity (Cornell and Hartmann 1998). However, as a way of understanding human groups, ethnicity also suffers from several shortcomings. First, ascribing an ethnic identity to a group can imply a much greater degree of uniformity than is actually the case. In the United States, the ethnic group "Hispanic or Latino" contains such subgroups as Cuban Americans, Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, and recent immigrants from Central America (Hayes-Bautista and Chapa 1987). Combining these groups into a single category may serve useful bureaucratic or political ends but does not necessarily result in a better understanding of these groups. Also, ethnicity, like race, is a malleable concept that can change dramatically in different times or circumstances (Waters 1990; Smelser et al. 2001). Ethnic groups may come into existence and then dissipate as a result of broad historical or social trends. Individuals might change ethnic groups over the course of their lives or identify with more than one group. A researcher, clinician, or government official might assign an ethnicity to an individual quite different from the one that person would acknowledge (Kressin et al. 2003). Finally, despite attempts to distinguish "ethnicity" from "race," the two terms often are used interchangeably (Oppenheimer 2001). Ethnic groups can share a belief in a common ancestral origin (Cornell and Hartmann 1998), which also can be a defining characteristic of a racial group. Furthermore, ethnic groups tend to promote marriage within the group, which creates an expectation of biological cohesion regardless of whether that cohesion existed in the past.

Ancestry as a way of categorizing people

An alternative to the use of racial or ethnic categories is to categorize individuals in terms of ancestry. Ancestry may be defined geographically (e.g., Asian, sub-Saharan African, or northern European), geopolitically (e.g., Vietnamese, Zambian, or Norwegian), or culturally (e.g., Brahmin, Lemba, or Apache). The definition of ancestry may recognize a single predominant source or multiple sources. Ancestry can be ascribed to an individual by an observer, as was the case with the U.S. census prior to 1960; it can be identified by an individual from a list of possibilities or with use of terms drawn from that person's experience; or it can be calculated from genetic data by use of loci with allele frequencies that differ geographically, as described above. At least among those individuals who participate in biomedical research, genetic estimates of biogeographical ancestry generally agree with self-assessed ancestry (Tang et al. 2005), but in an unknown percentage of cases, they do not (Brodwin 2002; Kaplan 2003). race in biomedicine Genetic data can be used to infer population structure and assign individuals to groups that often correspond with their self-identified geographical ancestry. The inference of population structure from multilocus genotyping depends on the selection of a large number of informative genetic markers. These studies usually find that groups of humans living on the same continent are more similar to one another than to groups living on different continents. Many such studies are criticized for assigning group identity a priori. However, even if group identity is stripped and group identity assigned a posteriori using only genetic data, population structure can still be inferred. For example, using 377 markers, Rosenberg et al. (2002) were able to assign 1,056 individuals from 52 populations around the globe to one of six genetic clusters, of which five correspond to major geographic regions. However, in analyses that assign individuals to group it becomes less apparent that self-described racial groups are reliable indicators of ancestry. One cause of the reduced power of the assignment of individuals to groups is admixture. Some racial or ethnic groups, especially Hispanic groups, do not have homogenous ancestry. For example, self-described African Americans tend to have a mix of West African and European ancestry. Shriver et al. (2003) found that on average African Americans have ~80% African ancestry. Likewise, many white Americans have mixed European and African ancestry, where ~30% of whites have less than 90% European ancestry. In this context, it is becoming more common place to describe "race" as fractional ancestry. Without the use of genotyping, this has been approximated by the self-described ancestry of an individual's grand-parents. Nevertheless, recent research indicates that self-described race is a near-perfect indicator of an individual's genetic profile, at least in the United States. Using 326 genetic markers, Tang et al. (2005) identified 4 genetic clusters among 3,636 individuals sampled from 15 locations in the United States, and were able to correctly assign individuals to groups that correspond with their self-described race (white, African American, East Asian, or Hispanic) for all but 5 individuals (an error rate of 0.14%). They conclude that ancient ancestry, which correlates tightly with self-described race and not current residence, is the major determinant of genetic structure in the U.S. population. Genetic techniques that distinguish ancestry between continents can also be used to describe ancestry within continents. However, the study of intra-continental ancestry may require a greater number of informative markers. Populations from neighboring geographic regions typically share more recent common ancestors. As a result, allele frequencies will be correlated between these groups. This phenomenon is often seen as a cline of allele frequencies. The existence of allelic clines has been offered as evidence that individuals cannot be allocated into genetic clusters (Kittles & Weiss 2003). However, others argue that low levels of differentiation between groups merely make the assignment to groups more difficult, not impossible (Bamshad et al. 2004). Despite its seemingly objective nature, ancestry also has limitations as a way of categorizing people (Elliott and Brodwin 2002). When asked

U.S. Census

The United States Census is mandated by the United States Constitution. The population is enumerated every 10 years and the results are used to allocate Congressional seats ("congressional apportionment"), electoral votes, and government program funding. (Some states also conduct statewide censuses as the need arises; these are called state censuses.) The census is performed by the United States Census Bureau. The first census after the American Revolution was taken in 1790; there have been 21 federal censuses since that time. The next census will be taken in 2010. A detailed page on the most recent census can be found at United States 2000 Census.

About Census records

Census records and data are not available to the public until 72 years after they were taken. Every census up to 1930 is currently available to the public and can be viewed on microfilm released by the National Archives and Records Administration, the official keeper of old federal census records. These census records are also available online from various sources such as [http://www.ancestry.com Ancestry.com], which has all released census records available for a subscription. The 1940 census will be available for review in 2012.

History of the U.S. Census

Censuses had been taken prior to the Constitution's ratification; in the early 1600s, a census was taken in Virginia, and people were counted in nearly all of the British colonies that became the United States. Down through the years, the country's needs and interests became more complex. This meant that there had to be statistics to help people understand what was happening and have a basis for planning. The content of the decennial census changed accordingly. In 1810 the first inquiry on manufactures, quantity and value of products; in 1840 on fisheries were added, and in 1850, the census included inquiries on social issues, such as taxation, churches, pauperism and crime. The censuses also spread geographically, to new States and Territories added to the Union, as well as to other areas under U.S. sovereignty or jurisdiction. There were so many more inquiries of all kinds in the censuses of 1880 and 1890 that almost a full decade was needed to publish all the results. For the first five censuses (1790-1840) enumerators recorded only the names of the heads of household and did a general demographic accounting of the remaining members of the household. Beginning in 1850, all members of the household were named by the enumerator. The first slave schedules were done in 1850, with the second (and last) in 1860. Censuses of the late 19th century also included agricultural and industrial schedules to gauge the productivity of the nation's economy. Mortality schedules (taken between 1850 and 1880) captured a snapshot of life-spans and causes of death throughout the country. The first nine censuses (1790-1870) were not managed by the U.S. Executive Branch, but by the U.S. Judicial Branch. The United States Federal Court districts assigned a U.S. marshals who hired assistant marshals to do the actual census-taking.

First Census of the United States (1790)

The first Census was taken August 2, 1790. The federal census records for the first census are missing for five states: Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, New Jersey and Virginia. They were destroyed some time between the time of the census-taking and 1830. The census estimated the population of the United States at 3,900,000.

Sixth Census of the United States (1840)

The sixth Census was taken June 1, 1840. The census estimated the population of the United States at 17,100,000. The results were tabulated by 28 clerks in the Bureau of the Census.

Seventh Census of the United States (1850)

The seventh Census was taken June 1, 1850. The 1850 census was a landmark year in American census-taking. It was the first year in which the census bureau attempted to count every member of every household, including women, children and slaves. Accordingly, the first slave schedules were produced in 1850. Prior to 1850, census records had only recorded the name of the head of the household and broad statistical accounting of other household members, (three children under age five, one woman between the age of 35 and 40, etc.).

Eighth Census of the United States (1860)

The eighth Census estimated the population of the United States at 31,400,000. The results were tabulated by 184 clerks in the Bureau of the Census.

Eleventh Census of the United States (1890)

The eleventh Census was taken June 1, 1890. The 1890 census announced that the frontier region of the United States no longer existed and therefore the tracking of westward migration would no longer be tabulated in the census. This trend prompted Frederick Jackson Turner to develop his milestone Frontier Thesis. The 1890 census was the first to be compiled on a tabulating machine, developed by Herman Hollerith. This introduction of technology reduced the time taken to tabulate the census from seven years for the 1880 census to two and a half years for the 1890 census despite the fact the U.S. population had almost doubled during that period. The total population of 62,622,250 was announced after only six weeks of processing. Ironically, the public reaction to this tabulation was disbelief, as it was widely believed that the "right answer" was at least 75,000,000. The logistical difficulties in compiling the census drove computing technology for the next fifty years until computers became widespread in industry. IBM's first electronic computer was created primarily to deal with the needs of the census in addition to military and academic uses. This census is also notable for the fact it is the only one for which the original data is no longer available. Almost all the population schedules were destroyed in a fire in 1921.

Fifteenth Census of the United States (1930)

The fifteenth Census was taken on April 2, 1930, except in Alaska Territory, where census-taking began October 1, 1929.

22nd Census of the United States (2000)

References

- Campbell-Kelly, Martin, and Aspray, William. Computer: A History of the Information Machine. New York: Basic Books, 1996. ISBN 0-465-02990-6.

External links

- [http://www.census.gov U.S. Census Bureau: Official site]
- [http://people.howstuffworks.com/census.htm howstuffworks.com: How the Census works]
- [http://www.1880uscensus.com 1880uscensus.com: 1880 United States Census search] Category:Demographics of the United States

Hispanic

Hispanic, as used in the United States, is one of several terms used to categorize persons whose ancestry hails either from Spain, the Spanish-speaking countries of Latin America, or the original settlers of the traditionally Spanish-held Southwestern United States. The term is used as a broad form of classification in the U.S. census, local and federal employment, and numerous business market researches. In Spain and Spanish-speaking Latin America, Hispano ("Hispanic") is ascribed as indicating a derivation from Spain, her people and culture. It follows the same style of use as Anglo indicates a derivation of England and the English, Hellenic of Greece and the Greeks, or Sino of China and the Chinese. Thus, the Spanish-American War in Spanish is known as "Guerra Hispano-Estadounidense", the "Spanish-German Treaty" as "Tratado Hispano-Alemán", "Spanish America" as Hispanoamérica, etc. The term is not commonly employed as a generalized indicator of ancestry and/or ethnicity in either Spain or Spanish-speaking Latin America, however, this can be implied depending on the context. When used in this manner, in Spanish-speaking Latin America an Hispano is commonly regarded to be any person whose ancestry and practiced culture both stem, whether in whole or in part, from the people and culture of Spain, to the contrast of the non-Hispanic (non-Spanish descended) populations. In Spanish America, when speaking of any given nation's Hispanic population, those who are implied include creoles, mestizos, and mulattos, but excludes indigenous Amerindians, the unmixed descendants of black African slaves, and other more recent non-Spanish immigrants which may now reside in Latin America. In this context, whether or not the excluded groups now use Spanish as their first and only language — as is the case with all blacks, most Amerindians and the great majority of immigrants — does not qualify for Hispanicity, since here the implication is based on more than just linguistic parameters. This use of the term is more so evident in addresses regarding affairs of indigenous and African-descended peoples made by government and minority agencies, where the creole, mestizo, and mulatto collective majority and their culture — which is accredited as the national identity — is distinguished as Hispanic for purposes of contrast to the plight of national minorities.

History of the term "Hispanic"

Etymologically, the term Hispanic (Hispano) is derived from Hispania, the name given by the Romans to the the entire Iberian Peninsula during the period of the Roman Republic. Its usage as an ethnic indicator in the United States is believed to have come into mainstream prominence following its inclusion in a question in the 1980 U.S. Census, which asked people to voluntarily identify if they were of "Spanish/Hispanic origin or descent".

Criticisms on the U.S. application of "Hispanic"

Racial Diversity

Hispanic, as the term is often defined and used in the United States (of Spanish-speaking Latin American or Spanish descent) encompasses a very diverse population, which often makes efforts toward creating a Pan-Hispanic sense of identity difficult. While in the United States "Hispanics" are often treated as a group apart from whites, blacks and other racial groups, they actually include people who identify with any or all of the aforementioned racial groups, as well as identifying as various others. In the mass media and in law enforcement, as well as popular culture, "Hispanic" is often used to physically describe a subject's race or appearance. In general, Hispanics are assumed to have traits such as dark hair and eyes, and olive or brown skin, and are viewed as physically intermediate between whites and Amerindians or blacks. Hispanics with mostly Caucasoid or Negroid features may not be recognized as such by many people, despite the ethnic and racial diversity of most Latin American populations. People of Spanish or Latin American ancestry who do not "look Hispanic" may have their ethnic status questioned or even challenged by others. In the United States, a great proportion of "Hispanics" identify as mestizo (mixed European and Amerindian), regardless of national origin. This is partly because much of Latin America is of that mixed ancestry, and mestizos constitute majority populations in most Latin American countries. Many other Hispanics may be of unmixed Spanish ancestry, primarily those from Uruguay, Argentina and Chile, or mestizos of predominantly Spanish ancestry, not uncommon amongst Costa Ricans. Some may also be of unmixed Native American ancestry, many of those from Bolivia, Guatemala, Peru — where they constitute majorities — and a considerable proportion of those from Mexico, while many Hispanics of Dominican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, and Colombian backgrounds may be mulatto (mixed European and black African) or of unmixed black African ancestry. The presence of these mentioned races and race-mixes are not country-specific, since they can be found in every Latin American country, whether as larger of smaller proportions of their respective populations. On occasion the demographics of certain nations may not mirror the demographics of their nationals in the United States. This is the case with Cuban Americans. Most Cuban Americans are of unmixed, or relatively unmixed, Spanish ancestry, despite Cuba being a mulatto/black majority country. The racial disparity between Cubans on the U.S. mainland and those on the island is caused largely by the fact that most emigrants with the means to flee communist Cuba belong to the upper and upper-middle classes; classes which have traditionally been predominantly white. Additionally, a percentage of U.S. "Hispanics" may have no Spanish ancestry at all, and instead trace their ancestries from other European countries, the Middle East, or even East Asia. Examples of these would include Argentinian and Uruguayan-born Italians (around one third of their countries' populations); Colombian, Ecuadorian, and Mexican-born Lebanese; Cuban, Puerto Rican and Panamanian-born Chinese; Chilean and Paraguayan-born Germans; or Peruvian-born Japanese. However, when they migrate to the United States, the definition as most frequently advocated would consider them Hispanic. See also: Asian Latino.

As an ethnic identifier

In the U.S. some people consider "Hispanic" to be too general as a label, while others consider it offensive, often preferring to use the term "Latino", which is viewed as a self-chosen label. The preference of "Latino" over "Hispanic" is partly because it more clearly indicates that those it is referring to are the people from Latin America, and not Spain. Different labels prevail in different regions, as well. In places like Arizona and California, the Chicanos are proud of their personal association and their participation in the agricultural movement of the 1960s with César Chávez, that brought attention to the needs of the farm workers. Previously Hispanics were commonly referred to as "Spanish-Americans", "Spanish-speaking Americans", and "Spanish-surnamed Americans". These terms, however, proved even more misleading or inaccurate since:
- most U.S. Hispanics were not born in Spain, nor were most born to recent Spanish nationals;
- although most U.S. Hispanics speak Spanish, not all do, and though most Spanish-speaking people are Hispanic, not all are (e.g., many U.S. Hispanics by the fourth generation no longer speak Spanish, while there are some non-Hispanics of the Southwestern United States that may be fluent in the language), and;
- although most Hispanics have a Spanish surname, not all do, and while most Spanish-surnamed people are Hispanic, not all are (e.g., there are many Spanish-surnamed Filipinos, however, not all Filipinos are Hispanic).

Synonyms and antonyms

Often the term "Hispanic" is used synonymously with the word "Latino", and frequently with "Latin" as well. Even though the terms may sometimes overlap in meaning, they are not completely synonymous. "Latin", when not refering directly and exclusively to the inhabitants of Ancient Rome, refers to any of the people related to, or descended from, the original Latin-speaking Romans, and includes all the Romance language-speaking European nationalities, or European Latin peoples (Portugal, Spain, France, Belgium Wallonia, Italy, Italian and French Switzerland, Romania, and Moldova), including their cultures, and their descendants worldwide. As it is patent, the main criterion here is a linguistic one, since all the nationalities and cultures do not constitute an homogenous entity. "Hispanic", on the other hand, specifically refers to Spain, and to the Spanish-speaking nations of the Americas as cultural and demographic extensions of Spain. Meanwhile, Latinos are only those from the countries of Latin America, whether Spanish or Portuguese-speaking, though in the latter case, not so frequently and with some ambiguities. Conflict arises with this definition however, since in Spanish "Latino" is what was described above as "Latin". Latino is, after all, the Spanish word for Latin. The confusion that arises is from the similarity between the words Latino and Latin, and between the concept of Hispanic and Latino. Latino is a shortened version of the Spanish noun latinoamericano and is used for the inhabitants of Latinoamérica (Latin America). However, once shortened it strikes Latinamericans as the word "latino" and not "latinoamericano" which have different meanings. In the Spanish language "Latín" (Latin) is the name of the language of the Romans, and as such is not confined solely to Hispanics and Latinos. Thus, of a group consisting of a Brazilian, a Colombian, a Mexican, a Spaniard, and a Romanian; the Brazilian, Colombian, and Mexican would all be Latinos (Latinoamericanos in Spanish), but not the Spaniard or the Romanian, since neither Spain nor Romania are geographically situated in Latin America. Conversely, the Colombian, Mexican and Spaniard would all be Hispanics, but not the Brazilian or the Romanian, since Brazil was conquered and founded by the Portuguese, and neither Portugal or Romania are extensions of Spain. The one exception for a Brazilian to be considered Hispanic is if his ancestry was Spanish. Finally, all of the above nationalities would all be Latin (Latino in Spanish), including the Romanian. Along the same lines, one should note that the term Latino is never, or very rarely, applied to French-speaking Québécois of Canada or Haitians. The categories of "Latino" and "Hispanic" are used primarily in the United States to socially differentiate people. As social categories they are not mutually exclusive and without ambiguities and cannot be seen as independent of social discrimination (socio-economic, ethnic or racial). Aside from "Hispanic", "Latino", and "Latin", other terms are used for more specific subsets of the Hispanic population. These terms often relate to specific countries of origin, such as "Mexican", "Mexican-American", "Cuban", "Puerto Rican" or "Dominican", etc. Other terms signify distinct cultural patterns among Hispanics which have emerged in what is now the United States, including "Chicano", "Tejano", "Nuyorican", etc.

U.S. Hispanic population

Roughly one in seven Americans is Hispanic. Hispanics constitute the largest minority group in the United States. As of July 1, 2004, Hispanics accounted for 14.1 percent of the population, around 41.3 million people. Hispanic growth rate over the July 1, 2003 to July 1, 2004 period was of 3.6 percent - higher than any other ethnic group in the United States, and in fact more than three times the rate of the nation's total population (at 1.0 percent). The projected Hispanic population of the United States for July 1, 2050, is of 102.6 million people. According to this projection, Hispanics will constitute 24% of the nation’s total population on that date. [http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/population/001720.html] Of the nations total Hispanic population, 49% lives in California or Texas. New Mexico is the state with the highest proportion of Hispanics, with 43% being of Hispanic-origin, followed by California and Texas, at 35 percent each. The Hispanic population of Los Angeles County, California - numbering over 4.6 million - is the largest of any county in the nation. [http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/facts_for_features_special_editions/005338.html] Sixty-four percent of the nation's Hispanic population are of Mexican background. Another approximately 10 percent are of Puerto Rican background, with about 3 percent each of Cuban, Salvadoran and Dominican origins. The remainder are of some other Central American, South American or other Hispanic or Latino origins. [http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/DatasetMainPageServlet?_program=ACS&_lang=en&_ts=134300672263]

Religious diversity

With regard to religious affiliation among Hispanics, Roman Catholicism is usually the first religious tradition that springs to mind. Indeed, the Spaniards brought the Roman Catholic faith to Latin America along with them, and Roman Catholicism continues to be the largest, but not the only, religious denomination amongst most Hispanics. A significant number of Hispanics are also Protestant, and several Protestant denominations (particularly Evangelical ones) have vigorously proselytized in Hispanic communities. There are also Jewish Hispanics, of which most are the descendants of Ashkenazi Jews who migrated from Europe (German Jews, French Jews, Russian Jews, Austrian Jews, Polish Jews, etc.) to Latin America, particularly Argentina, in the 19th century and during and following WWII, and from there to the United States. Some Jewish Hispanics may also originate from the small communities of reconverted descendants of anusim — those whose Spanish and Portuguese Sephardi Jewish ancestors long ago hid their Jewish ancestry and beliefs in fear of persecution by the Spanish Inquisition and Portuguese Inquisition (in the Iberian peninsula and Latin America) — or the now Catholic-professing descendants of marranos and the Hispano crypto-Jews believed to exist in the once Spanish-held Southwestern United States and scattered through Latin America. (See also History of the Jews in Latin America and List of Latin American Jews.) Among the Hispanic Catholics, most communities celebrate their homeland's patron saint, dedicating a day for this purpose with festivals and religious services. Some Hispanics syncretize Roman Catholicism and African or Native American rituals and beliefs. Such is the case of Santería in Cuba and Puerto Rico, which combines old African beliefs in the form of Roman Catholic saints and rituals; or Guadalupism (the devotion towards Our Lady of Guadalupe) among Mexican Roman Catholics. This latter hybridizes Catholic rites for the virgin Mary with those venerating the Aztec goddess Tonantzin (earth goddess, mother of the gods and protector of humanity) and has all her attributes also endowed to the Lady of Guadalupe, whose Catholic shrine stands on the same sacred Aztec site that had previsously been dedicated to Tonatzín, on the hill of Tepeyac. NOTE: There are growing numbers of "Hispanic" Muslims within the United States.

Political diversity

Hispanics differ slightly on their political views. For example, many Cubans and Colombians tend to favor conservative political ideologies and support the Republicans, while Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and Dominicans lean more towards the Democrats; however, because the latter groups are far more numerous (Mexicans alone are nearly 60% of Hispanics), the Democratic Party is considered to be in a far stronger position among Hispanics overall. In the past two national election cycles, however, the Presidency of George W. Bush has had a significant impact on the political leanings of Hispanic Americans. As a former Governor of Texas, President Bush has regarded the growing Hispanic community as a potential source of growth for the conservative and/or Republican movement--particularly because of the Catholic and more conservative social values that many Hispanic Americans share with the conservative element of the American political system. The U.S. Census indicates that the Hispanic population of the United States is the fastest growing minority in the country, and will hold considerable political clout within the next 50 years. Some political organizations associated with Hispanic Americans are LULAC, the United Farm Workers and the Cuban American National Foundation.

Cultural trends

Popular culture varies widely from one Hispanic community to another, despite this, several features tend to unite Hispanics from diverse backgrounds. Many Hispanics, including U.S.-born second and third generation Hispanics, use the Spanish language to varying degrees. The most usual pattern is monolingual Spanish usage among new immigrants or older foreign born Hispanics, complete bilingualism among long settled immigrants and their children, and the use of Spanglish and colloquial Spanish within long established Hispanic communities by the third generation and beyond. In some families the children and grandchildren of immigrants speak mostly English with some Spanish words and phrases thrown in.

Media

The United States is home to thousands of Spanish language media outlets ranging in size from low-power AM radio stations with listeners numbering in the hundreds to major Hispanic-oriented periodicals with circulations numbering in the millions. Noteworthy Spanish language media outlets include [http://www.univision.com Univisión], a national television chain with affiliates in nearly every major U.S. market, [http://www.elnuevoherald.com El Nuevo Herald], a Spanish-language daily newspaper serving the greater Miami, Florida market, and [http://www.vidalatina.cc Vida Latina], a Spanish-language entertainment magazine distributed throughout the Southern United States. In the aspect of public television otherwise known as non-commerical television, there are organizations that advocate a greater degree of programming from a Hispanic-American perspective in public television. One of the most prominent of these groups is Latino Public Broadcasting which funds programs of educational and cultural significance to Hispanic-Americans. These LPB-funded projects are distributed to various public television stations throughout the United States.

Music

Folk and popular dance and music also varies greatly among Hispanics. While many people speak of "Latin" music as a single genre, Latin America is home to a wide variety of music. Hispanic Caribbean music tends to favor complex polyrhythms of African origin. Mexican music, depending on region, shows combined influences of Spanish, Native American and African origin, while the traditional norteño, banda music, and Tejano music of Mexican-Americans is more influenced by country-and-western music and the polka, brought by central European settlers to Texas. Meanwhile, native Andean sounds and melodies are the backbone of Peruvian and Bolivian music, but also play a significant role in the popular music of most South American countries and are heavily incorporated into the folk music of Ecuador and Chile and the tunes of Colombia, and again in Chile and Argentina where they play a fundamental role in the form of the greatly followed nueva canción. Latin pop, rock and ballad styles tend to appeal to the broader Hispanic population, and varieties of Cuban music are popular with many Hispanics of all backgrounds.

Literature

There is a depth of literature in this community.

Visual Art

Chicano Art, is noted for the folk influences from Mexico, characterized by vibrant colors and striking imagery.

Cuisine

There is also no single stereotypical Hispanic cuisine. Traditional Mexican, Cuban, Spanish, Argentinian and Peruvian cooking, for example, all vary greatly from each other, and take on new forms in the United States. While Mexican cuisine is the most familiar variety of "Hispanic food" in most of the United States, it is not representative of the cuisine of most other Hispanics. The cuisine of Mexico can be heavily dependent on staples such as maize, beans, chile peppers and is greatly indebted to the cuisine and diet of the Aztec and Maya. Cuba, on the other hand, may be dependent on starchy root vegetables, plantain and rice and is influenced by the flavours of Africa. The cuisine of Spain often mirrors the cuisines of its Mediterranean neighbours, and in addition to the abundance of olives, olive oil, tomatoes, seafood and meats, other foreign influences, such as the use of saffron, were introduced during the spice trade. Meanwhile, Argentina relies almost exclusively on red meats, consuming almost everything derived from beef, and is heavily influenced by Italian cuisine. In Peruvian cuisine guinea pigs are popular as a source of meat (derived from the diet of the Inca) and staples indigenous to the region, such as maize and the myriad of potato varieties, are the most utilised there. Rice also plays an important role in Peruvian cuisine. This diversity in staples and cuisine is also evident in the differing regional cuisines within the national borders of the individual countries. Most groceries in heavily Hispanic areas carry a wide array of specialty Latin American products, in addition to the widely available brands of tortillas and Mexican style salsa.

Symbols

Flag

salsa While relatively unknown, there is a flag representing the countries of Hispanic America, its people, history and shared cultural legacy. It was created in October of 1933 by Ángel Camblor, captain of the Uruguayan army. It was adopted by all the states of Latin America during La Conferencia Panamericana (The Pan-American Conference) held that same year in Montevideo, Uruguay. The white background stands for peace, the Inti (sun god in Inca mythology) symbolizes the light shining on the American continent, and the three crosses represent Christopher Columbus' caravels (the Niña, Pinta, and Santa María ships used in his first voyage from Spain to the New World in 1492). The lilac colour of the crosses evokes the Castilian banner.

Hymn

:Himno de las Américas :(R. Sciamarella) :Un canto de amistad, de buena vecindad, :unidos nos tendrá eternamente. :Por nuestra libertad, por nuestra lealtad :debemos de vivir gloriosamente. :Un símbolo de paz alumbrará el vivir :de todo el Continente Americano. :Fuerza de Optimismo, fuerza de la hermandad :será este canto de buena vecindad. :Argentina, Brasil y Bolivia, :Colombia, Chile y Ecuador, :Uruguay, Paraguay, Venezuela, :Guatemala y El Salvador, :Costa Rica, Haití y Nicaragua, :Honduras y Panamá, :Norteamérica, México y Perú, :Cuba y Canadá: :¡Son hermanos soberanos de la libertad! :¡Son hermanos soberanos de la libertad! In an alternate version, the countries are re-arranged, "Canadá" is removed (as the already mentioned "Norteamérica" implies both the United States and Canada), and "Santo Domingo" (i.e. Dominican Republic) is added instead. :Argentina, Brasil y Bolivia, :Colombia, Chile y Ecuador, :Uruguay, Venezuela y Honduras :Guatemala y El Salvador, :Costa Rica, Haití y Nicaragua, :Cuba y Paraguay, :Norteamérica, México y Perú, :Santo Domingo y Panamá:

External links

- [http://www.trustedtranslations.com/hispanic_market.asp Hispanic Market in the U.S.]
- [http://www.ahorre.com/hispanicmarket.htm U.S. Hispanic Market in 2010] Category:Ethnic groups of the United States ja:ヒスパニック

Caucasian race

:See Caucasian for other uses of the term. The term Caucasian race is used almost exclusively in the United States to r

Race (U.S. Census)

2000 Definitions

Footnote

References

United States Census Bureau

Reference and external links

Race

Historical origins of "race"

History of the term

History of race research

20th- and 21st-century debates over race

Scale of race research

Race as subspecies

The rejection of race and the rise of "population" and "cline"

Summary of different definitions of race

The origins, patterns, and physical manifestations of human genetic variation

Origins of modern humans

Multiregional hypothesis

Out of Africa

Cladistics

Distribution of variation

Substructure in the human population

Physical variation in humans

Social interpretation of physical variation

Incongruities of racial classifications

Ethnicity as a way of categorizing people

Ancestry as a way of categorizing people

U.S. Census

About Census records

History of the U.S. Census

First Census of the United States (1790)

Second Census of the United States (1800)

Third Census of the United States (1810)

Fourth Census of the United States (1820)

Fifth Census of the United States (1830)

Sixth Census of the United States (1840)

Seventh Census of the United States (1850)

Eighth Census of the United States (1860)

Eleventh Census of the United States (1890)

Fifteenth Census of the United States (1930)

22nd Census of the United States (2000)

See also

References

External links

Hispanic

History of the term "Hispanic"

Criticisms on the U.S. application of "Hispanic"

Racial Diversity

As an ethnic identifier

Synonyms and antonyms

U.S. Hispanic population

Religious diversity

Political diversity

Cultural trends

Media

Music

Literature

Visual Art

Cuisine

Symbols

Flag

Hymn

See also

External links

Caucasian race