“The ‘Hispanic’ Race Debate: Limitations of the Term in an Orlando School Board Controversy”
by Kristi McDuffie | Xchanges 9.1
Hispanic as a Race
While few respondents actually argue that Hispanic is a race, many refute the idea of a biracial committee because race as a concept and as it relates to Hispanics is so problematic and unrepresentative of the current makeup of the U.S. and the school. Comments include observations such as: “Ridiculous! Anyone who imagines there are only two races in this country hasn’t stepped outside their reading room for twenty years” and “The whole concept of race is so outdated.”
As these commentators illustrate, one large problem with the term “Hispanic” is that the current, socially constructed racial categories available are inadequate for describing and representing the demographics of the people included in that label. Furthermore, despite the origination and intended use of the term “Hispanic,” this definition is inadequate for capturing the many ways that “Hispanic” is used in contemporary public discourse. “Hispanic” is often used as a racialized term despite its technical definition. Alcoff, for instance, notes that Hispanic identity “is often presented as a racial identity” (33). Furthermore, José Luis Morín claims that despite the government’s consideration of “Hispanic” to be “an ethnic rather than a racial category for statistical purposes,” “[i]n the daily workings of society and the justice system…Latinos/as have most often been perceived and treated in racial terms” (5).
A complicating factor in the idea of “Hispanic” as a race or ethnicity is the way that race is constructed in the U.S. Eduardo Mendieta explains that because people included under the label “Hispanic” often do not conceptualize race the same way it is conceptualized in the U.S., the U.S. should not force people to adopt this “questionable and onerous label” (50). Mendieta claims that while Latin America uses race to note class and status difference, the U.S. uses race to strip people of their humanity through “part of an ideology of conquest, subjugation, and subalterzation, of destruction and decimation” (55).
This different concept of race might also explain why the Hispanic activists in this case are displeased with the school board’s response that they can be included on the committee as black or white. Hispanics often identify themselves by place of national origin and often fill in their place of origin as their race on forms such as the census (Morín 10). Kenneth Prewitt notes that many Hispanics choose “other” for race on the census form and that “[n]early half of the Hispanics did so in 2000, most of them Mexican Americans who were claiming their nationality as a race, a race not recognized in the official statistics” (13). In the 2010 census, 36.7% of Hispanics chose “Some other race” or wrote in their national origin as their race. The black/white divide is inadequate for describing Hispanics and many other races and ethnicities in the U.S.
Recent information after the 2010 census suggests that there might be significant changes coming for this term in the 2020 census. Based on experimental questions, the Census Bureau suggested three changes: making Hispanic one single category without separately asking about race; adding write-in categories for Middle Eastern and Arab; and removing the word “Negro” as an alternative to black and African American (Trounson). While these changes would help the census more accurately reflect changing identities in the U.S., census changes do not necessarily mean a change in the definition of “Hispanic” given by the Office of Management and Budget, nor does it mean changes in the way that the term is used in our public discourse.