Census 2010 – The American Race

Hans von Spakovsky / March 24, 2010

Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies and I have been talking on at NRO’s The Corner about the Census form and the particularly obnoxious Question 9 asking the person’s “race.” Mark sent his form in after marking the option for “Some other race” and writing in “American” and he had a column in USA Today about it. As I pointed out, federal law specifies that you can be fined if you either don’t answer ($100 per question) or provide a false answer ($500 per question). So the question arises whether Mark’s answer could get him in trouble.

There is no question that the bureaucrats at the Census Bureau will not like that answer. It is likely that one of their temporary workers will call Mark or actually pay a visit to his residence if they cannot get hold of him or he refuses to change his answer on the phone. If they still can’t get the kind of answer they want, they apparently will just impute his race based on what he looks like or where he lives – a practice that means the Census will be filled with questionable, inaccurate data. It is also highly-offensive racial stereotyping and profiling in a society where so many of us are of mixed race and ancestry. In a report it issued on the 2010 (more…)