![]() ![]() Many or even most might identify their race as “Hispanic” if it were an explicit option. White identification is not necessarily a sign that Hispanics consider themselves white. Just another paragraph down, Cohn says this: It is particularly significant that the shift toward white identification withstood a decade of debate over immigration and the country’s exploding Hispanic population, which might have been expected to inculcate or reinforce a sense of Hispanic identity, or draw attention to divisions that remain between Hispanics and non-Hispanic white Americans. The data provide new evidence consistent with the theory that Hispanics may assimilate as white Americans, like the Italians or Irish, who were not universally considered to be white. But a new study of census forms finds that more Hispanics are identifying as white.” In the beginning of his piece, he says this, “Hispanics are often described as driving up the nonwhite share of the population. Nonetheless, even though Cohn’s logic is faulty, let’s still play with it. There was also a 32% increase in “two or more races.” Is that a sign of a country that is becoming more “white?”.Is anyone asking how many Hispanics switched to those categories? Anyone? All other non-white populations grew by double-digit percentages.So even if Cohn’s is piece is suggesting that more Hispanics are declaring to be more “white,” the actual white population is decreasing. white population decreased by almost three percentage points and was the slowest-growing population in terms of percentage. You can have all the separate Pew studies you like, but the actual census numbers reveal so much more: In addition, why not bring in the actual 2010 census numbers to give the Times piece more context? See this: Hispanic population from 2000 to 2010, wouldn’t Cohn’s definitive conclusion suggest a lesser percentage if you took into account the 2010 total numbers instead of basing it on the 2000 ones? What race did the additional 15.5 million people who identified as Hispanic in 2010 mark? And what about the 1.3 million who switched in the other direction? That would be just a net of 1.2 million people who changed back to “white,” and given the fact that there was a 43 percent increase in the U.S. However, in 2010, according to the census, there were 50.5 million Hispanics in the U.S. Of those 35 million, 2.5 million went from “some other race” to “white” in 2010. First, in 2000, according to Cohn and the census, there were 35 million Americans of Hispanic origin. Let’s stop for a moment and do some math. A noteworthy but unspecified share of the change came from children who weren’t old enough to fill out a form in 2000, but chose for themselves in 2010. An additional 1.3 million people switched in the other direction. The researchers found that 2.5 million Americans of Hispanic origin, or approximately 7 percent of the 35 million Americans of Hispanic origin in 2000, changed their race from “some other race” in 2000 to “white” in 2010. The crux of Cohn’s piece is this paragraph, which refers to this Pew study: ![]() ![]() ![]() We already mentioned the sensational headline: “More Hispanics Declaring Themselves White,” which is followed by an animated graphic of a figure in grey (grey?) going from grey to white. In the ongoing and rather ridiculous trend of how non-Latinos ( see Slate) are addressing Latinidad for national outlets, this week Nate Cohn of The New York Times’ “The Upshot” got all analytical with the following piece, “More Hispanics Declaring Themselves White.”īefore proceeding to completely knock down Cohn’s conclusions and prove yet again that having non-Latinos talk about Latino identity without having Latinos at the center of the conversation ( just read what Blanca Elizabeth Vega says), let’s review how the Times presents this piece. She also wrote that the study was still not public, nor was it finalized. UPDATE, 8:15pmET, May 22, 2014: I had an email exchange with one of the study’s co-authors today, and she wrote me that Cohn’s inferences about the data were his and not her research group’s conclusions. ![]()
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