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Navigating Hispanicity

Explore how the US Census shapes Hispanic identity, from discrimination to political empowerment and race formation. Uncover the historical evolution and impact of census data on race, immigration, civil rights, and minority representation.

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Navigating Hispanicity

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  1. Navigating Hispanicity Discrimination, Representation, and the United State Census By Darcie Mulholland

  2. The nature of Hispanic identity will be examined by documenting: How the United States census evolved into a political tool How the United States census influenced and was influenced by race and ethnic groups. Presentation’s Purpose

  3. Key Concepts • Race and ethnicity is a social construct • Racial formation is a process of representation and organization • Racial projects connect what race means to ways social structures are racial organized. • Reactionary groups are formed from experienced discrimination and are able to react against said discrimination. Racial projects are manifested in the United States Census

  4. Census History and US racial Formation • I will discuss US census history as it pertains to: • Original purpose of the Census • Manipulation of data for political power • Emphasis in social mapping Hispancity gained membership in the context of the Civil Rights Movement.

  5. Creating political power through social maps “Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.” (United States Constitution, Section 2 Paragraph 3)

  6. Creating political power through social maps • 1790 census: taxes calculated by slaves per household • 1810 census: release of statistical reports for policymaking and federal mandates • 1860 census: slave demographic and the Civil War (1861-1865) Detailed enumeration meant that the policy makers could use social statistics for legitimizing federal laws and for the implementation of those laws.

  7. Immigration Quotas and Racial Projects • Since 1840 national origin and immigration status recorded. • Through the census, federal government saw immigrants as a problem. • Immigration Act 1924: the federal government created national quotas for immigration based on the census tabulation of United States population’s national origin. • Northern and Western Europe gain 82% of the total annual quotas • Immigrants saw themselves in a hierarchy led by western-origin European Americans

  8. From Dictatorship to Hegemony: The Civil Rights Movement • Characteristics of a Racial State: • Single race is considered normal or default • A color-line is formed at the basic societal level • The consolidation of distinct groups into a racial category • Racial dictatorship: based on coercion • Racial hegemony: based on subconscious acceptance of racial categories It is in the process of racial formation that states move from a dictatorship to hegemony.

  9. A Reactionary State • Black Pride Movement (1960s): • Community reacted against discriminatory laws on the local, state, and federal level • each subsequent protest was strengthened by prior victories. Representation by numbers and the solidarity of those numbers means political voice

  10. A Reactionary State • Voting Rights Act of 1965: • If a minority group could illustrate that it had less opportunity in electing representatives, redistricting could be challenged Minority groups used the census for strengthening their political agendas.

  11. Rise of Hispanicity • Prior to 1970s Hispanics were regionalized

  12. 1970 and 1980 Hispanic Navigation

  13. 1970 and 1980 Hispanic Navigating • Counting the Forgotten: The 1970 Census Count of Person of Spanish-Speaking Background in the United States (1974) • Census Bureau discriminated against Hispanics • Compared Blacks to Hispanics Quantifying minorities equals civil rights issue

  14. Undercounts and Publicity Campaigns • Funds for civil rights programs were apportioned via census data. • Undercounting meant less federal funds. • Publicity campaigns tried to decreased the 1990 and 2000 census undercounts Publicity campaigns sought to legitimate and naturalize “Hispanic” .

  15. Hispanicity-a social construct • Census naturalized and prioritized • Civil Rights Movement legitimated and empowered • Hispanicity evolved from this environment Hispanics use their label to navigate US political discourse

  16. Conclusion • Census data manipulated for nation-state practices • Discrimination results in group solidarity and mobilization • Collective identities react against the dominators • Immigrants achieving political power through mass numbers— • adopting homogenized label

  17. “We can never merge, we are going to be like other communities—different, powerful but different. We are going to be Latinos” (Itzigsohn 2004: 207)

  18. References • Anderson, Margo J. 1988. The American Census: A Social History. New Haven: Yale University Press. • Bean, Frank D. and Marta Tienda. 1987. The Hispanic Population of the United States. The Population of the United States in the 1980s: A Census Monography Series. National Committee for Research on the 1980 Census. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. • Counting the Forgotten: The 1970 Census Count of persons of Spanish-Speaking Background in the United States. A Report of the U.S. Committee on Civil Rights, April 1974. Available at http://www.law.umaryland.edu/marshall/usccr/documents/cr12sp22970.pdf • Fox, Geoffrey. 1996. Hispanic Nation: Culture, Politics, and the Constructing of Identity. New Jersey: Carol Publishing Group. • Gauthier, Jason G. 2002. Measuring America: The Decennial Census From 1790 to 2000. Available at: http://www.census.gov/population/www/censusdata/hiscendata.html • Hillygus, Sunshine D.; Norman H Nie; Kenneth Prewitt; and Heili Pals. 2006. The Hard Count: The Political and Social Challenges of Census Mobilization. New York: Russel Sage Foundation. • Itzigsohn, José. 2004. The Formation of Latino and Latina Panethnic Identities. Not Just Black and White: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Immigration, Race, and Ethnicity in the United States. Nancy Foner and George M. Fredrickson, eds. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. • Marx, Anthony. 1998. Making Race and Nation: A Comparison of South Africa, the United States, and Brazil. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. • Nobles, Melissa. 2000. Shades of Citizenship: Race and the Census in Modern Politics. Stanford: Stanford University Press. • Omi, Michael and Howard Winant. 2001. Racial Formation. The New Social Theory Reader: Contemporary Debates. Steven Seidman and Jeffrey C. Alexander, eds. London: Routledge • Portes, Alejandro and Ruben G. Rumbaut. 2006. Immigrant America: A Portrait. 3rd ed. Berkeley: University of California Press. • Prewitt, Kenneth 2004. The Census Counts, the Census Classifies. Not Just Black and White: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Immigration, Race, and Ethnicity in the United States. Nancy Foner and George M. Fredrickson, eds. New York: Russell Sage Foundation

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